[Seminar] "Illusions and biases of human body schema" by Dr. Art Pilacinski

Speaker: Dr. Art Pilacinski
Ruhr University Bochum, Germany

Title: Illusions and biases of human body schema

Abstract:

Human actions are guided by predictions. These predictions are multi-level, top-down (re)constructed and operate on a multisensory representation (schema) of own body.  By using two examples from my own research: phantom touch illusion (Pilacinski et al., 2023) and underestimation bias in own hand movement range (Pilacinski et al., 2024), I will show how these representations use inferred, cognitively transformed and somewhat inaccurate body schema. I will also argue that these apparent cognitive inaccuracies of the body schema can actually be a feature rather than a bug in human action awareness. This, in turn, has numerous impications for how we can design and operate virtual bodies.

Bio:

Art Pilacinski has background in human neural and behavioral sciences. He received his PhD from University of Tuebingen, Germany. He now works at the lab of Christian Klaes at Ruhr University Bochum, Germany, There, his research is focused on number processing in single neurons of human intraparietal sulcus*1, non-visual eye movements during thinking *2, phantom touch *3, intuitive biomechanics *4,  and collaborative robotics *5. Last but not least, he runs the VRSummit *6 conference.

*1: https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2023.05.18.541297v1

*2: https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.03.11.642662v1

*3 : https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-023-42683-0

*4 : https://www.nature.com/articles/s44271-024-00153-x

*5 : https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/neurorobotics/articles/10.3389/fnbot.2024.1383089/full

*6 : http://vrs.rub.de/