Marchesotti Silvia, Bernasconi Fosco, Rognini Giulio, De Lucia Marzia, Bleuler Hannes, Blanke Olaf
Laboratory of Cognitive Neuroscience, Center for Neuroprosthetics and Brain Mind Institute, Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, Geneva, Switzerland.
Laboratory of Robotic Systems, Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, Lausanne, Switzerland.
Front Neurorobot. 2023 Jan 26;16:1034615. doi: 10.3389/fnbot.2022.1034615. eCollection 2022.
Visuo-motor integration shapes our daily experience and underpins the sense of feeling in control over our actions. The last decade has seen a surge in robotically and virtually mediated interactions, whereby bodily actions ultimately result in an artificial movement. But despite the growing number of applications, the neurophysiological correlates of visuo-motor processing during human-machine interactions under dynamic conditions remain scarce. Here we address this issue by employing a bimanual robotic interface able to track voluntary hands movement, rendered in real-time into the motion of two virtual hands. We experimentally manipulated the visual feedback in the virtual reality with spatial and temporal conflicts and investigated their impact on (1) visuo-motor integration and (2) the subjective experience of being the author of one's action (i.e., sense of agency). Using somatosensory evoked responses measured with electroencephalography, we investigated neural differences occurring when the integration between motor commands and visual feedback is disrupted. Our results show that the right posterior parietal cortex encodes for differences between congruent and spatially-incongruent interactions. The experimental manipulations also induced a decrease in the sense of agency over the robotically-mediated actions. These findings offer solid neurophysiological grounds that can be used in the future to monitor integration mechanisms during movements and ultimately enhance subjective experience during human-machine interactions.
视觉运动整合塑造了我们的日常体验，并支撑着我们对自身行动的掌控感。在过去十年中，机器人介导和虚拟介导的交互激增，身体动作最终导致人工运动。但是，尽管应用数量不断增加，动态条件下人机交互过程中视觉运动处理的神经生理学相关性仍然稀缺。在这里，我们通过使用一种能够跟踪自愿手部运动的双手机器人界面来解决这个问题，该界面实时呈现为两只虚拟手的运动。我们通过虚拟现实中的空间和时间冲突实验性地操纵视觉反馈，并研究它们对（1）视觉运动整合和（2）作为自身行动发起者的主观体验（即能动感）的影响。使用脑电图测量体感诱发电位，我们研究了运动指令与视觉反馈之间的整合被破坏时出现的神经差异。我们的结果表明，右侧顶叶后皮质编码了一致和空间不一致交互之间的差异。实验操作还导致对机器人介导行动的能动感下降。这些发现提供了坚实的神经生理学依据，未来可用于监测运动过程中的整合机制，并最终增强人机交互过程中的主观体验。
