Publications de Christian Pfeiffer

Microgravity induces overconfidence in perceptual decision-making

Davide Scaramuzza, Christian Pfeiffer, Leyla Loued-Khenissi

Does gravity affect decision-making? This question comes into sharp focus as plans for interplanetary human space missions solidify. In the framework of Bayesian brain theories, gravity encapsulates a strong prior, anchoring agents to a reference frame via ...

Nature Portfolio2023

Vestibular modulation of peripersonal space boundaries

Olaf Blanke, Christian Pfeiffer, Jean-Paul Noel, Andrea Serino

Human-environment interactions are mediated through the body and occur within the peripersonal space (PPS), the space immediately adjacent to and surrounding the body. The PPS is taken to be a critical interface between the body and the environment, and in ...

2018

Interoceptive signals impact visual processing: Cardiac modulation of visual body perception

Olaf Blanke, Javier Bello Ruiz, Christian Pfeiffer, Mariia Kaliuzhna, Roberta Ronchi, Fosco Bernasconi

Multisensory perception research has largely focused on exteroceptive signals, but recent evidence has revealed the integration of exteroceptive signals with interoceptive information. Such research revealed that heartbeat signals affect sensory (e.g., vis ...

Elsevier2017

Distinct vestibular effects on early and late somatosensory cortical processing in humans

Olaf Blanke, Christian Pfeiffer, Michiel van Elk, Fosco Bernasconi

In non-human primates several brain areas contain neurons that respond to both vestibular and somatosensory stimulation. In humans, vestibular stimulation activates several somatosensory brain regions and improves tactile perception. However, less is known ...

Academic Press Inc Elsevier Science2016

Transient Modulations of Neural Responses to Heartbeats Covary with Bodily Self-Consciousness

Olaf Blanke, Javier Bello Ruiz, Christian Pfeiffer, Roy Salomon, Fosco Bernasconi, Hyeongdong Park

Recent research has investigated self-consciousness associated with the multisensory processing of bodily signals (e.g., somatosensory, visual, vestibular signals), a notion referred to as bodily self-consciousness, and these studies have shown that the ma ...

Soc Neuroscience2016

Visual gravity contributes to subjective first-person perspective

Bruno Herbelin, Olaf Blanke, Petr Grivaz, Christian Pfeiffer, Andrea Serino

A fundamental component of conscious experience involves a first-person perspective (1PP), characterized by the experience of being a subject and of being directed at the world. Extending earlier work on multisensory perceptual mechanisms of 1PP, we here a ...

Oxford Univ Press2016

Peripersonal space as the space of the bodily self

Olaf Blanke, Christian Pfeiffer, Jean-Paul Noel, Andrea Serino

Bodily self-consciousness (BSC) refers to experience of one's self as located within an owned body (self-identification) and as occupying a specific location in space (self-location). BSC can be altered through multisensory stimulation, as in the Full Body ...

Elsevier2015

Vestibular contribution to bodily self-consciousness and multisensory cortical processing

Christian Pfeiffer

How does the self relate to the body? Bodily self-consciousness, i.e. the sense of being a subject bound to a body, involves a first-person perspective (1PP), i.e. the sense of being directed at the world. Prior research suggests that bodily self-conscious ...

EPFL2015

Multisensory Spatial Mechanisms of the Bodily Self and Social Cognition - A Commentary on Vittorio Gallese and Valentina Cuccio

Christian Pfeiffer

This commentary aims to find the right description of the pre-reflective brain mechanisms underlying our phenomenal experience of being a subject bound to a physical body (bodily self) and basic cognitive, perceptual, and subjective aspects related to inte ...

2015

Visuospatial viewpoint manipulation during full-body illusion modulates subjective first-person perspective

Olaf Blanke, Valentin Marc Schmutz, Christian Pfeiffer

Self-consciousness is based on multisensory signals from the body. In full-body illusion (FBI) experiments, multisensory conflict was used to induce changes in three key aspects of bodily self-consciousness (BSC): self-identification (which body 'I' identi ...

Springer Verlag2014

The vestibular system: a spatial reference for bodily self-consciousness

Olaf Blanke, Christian Pfeiffer, Andrea Serino

Self-consciousness is the remarkable human experience of being a subject: the “I”. Self- consciousness is typically bound to a body, and particularly to the spatial dimensions of the body, as well as to its location and displacement in the gravitational fi ...

Frontiers Research Foundation2014

Illusory self-identification with an avatar reduces arousal responses to painful stimuli

Olaf Blanke, Christian Pfeiffer

Looking at one's own body has been shown to induce analgesia. In the present work we investigated whether illusory self-identification with an avatar, as induced experimentally through visuo-tactile stimulation, modulates the response to painful stimuli. I ...

Elsevier2014

Multisensory Origin of the Subjective First-Person Perspective: Visual, Tactile, and Vestibular Mechanisms

Roberto Martuzzi, Olaf Blanke, Christophe Lopez, Valentin Marc Schmutz, Christian Pfeiffer, Julio Duenas

In three experiments we investigated the effects of visuo-tactile and visuo-vestibular conflict about the direction of gravity on three aspects of bodily self-consciousness: self-identification, self-location, and the experienced direction of the first-per ...

Public Library of Science2013

Full body illusion is associated with widespread skin temperature reduction

Roger Gassert, Olaf Blanke, Christian Pfeiffer, Roy Salomon, Mei Ling Melanie Lim

A central feature of our consciousness is the experience of the self as a unified entity residing in a physical body, termed bodily self-consciousness. This phenomenon includes aspects such as the sense of owning a body (also known as body ownership) and h ...

Frontiers Research Foundation2013

Neuroscience robotics to investigate multisensory integration and bodily awareness

Roger Gassert, Dominique Chapuis, Roberto Martuzzi, Olaf Blanke, Silvio Ionta, Christian Pfeiffer, Julio Duenas

Humans experience the self as localized within their body. This aspect of bodily self-consciousness can be experimentally manipulated by exposing individuals to conflicting multisensory input, or can be abnormal following focal brain injury. Recent technol ...

2012