Chronic pain is a major public health challenge in the EU. Fibromyalgia (FM), a common chronic pain condition, disrupts both bodily self-consciousness and its connection to that of others (the social bodily self). No cure and complex symptomatology lead to invisible disability, alienation and social difficulties, creating an urgent need for new theoretical approaches and treatments. One of the most effective interventions is dance, although there are no specific dance training protocols for FM, and the mechanisms in dance responsible for its health benefits remain unknown. In typical adults, moving in synchrony with others triggers interpersonal neural synchrony (INS) (of movement, physiological function and brain activity), which increases bonding and reduces pain. It is unknown whether people with chronic pain experience the same INS and how this may affect their bodily self and social connectedness. Therefore, our aims are: 1) to co-design and validate a dance protocol for investigating INS in FM, and 2) to investigate the effects of social (vs individual) dance on the social bodily self in FM to reveal the role of INS in these effects. Our project is based on a participatory design and a robust experimental plan, including a randomised controlled trial. We will use functional near-infrared spectroscopy hyperscanning, physiological recording, and precise body tracking to quantify INS during dance in people with pain and pain-free controls. The key impact of DaNSEC will be new high quality knowledge, made possible by the complementary expertise of two world-class advisors in interpersonal synchrony (lead advisor) and dance (co-advisor). The results of this project will open up new avenues to explore the therapeutic potential of interpersonal synchrony for FM and other chronic pain conditions.

The experience of having a body, a central element of self-consciousness, emerges from a combination of bottom-up and top-down influences. It is a basic phenomenon for our existence, yet, it can be manipulated, as demonstrated in the rubber hand illusion. A special case of bodily illusion is virtual embodiment, when a computer-generated environment “replaces” the physical world, and a physical body is replaced by a virtual one (an avatar). The illusion is built on body ownership (“This is my body”), agency (“I control it”), self-location (“It replaces in space my real body”), and physical appearance. Congruent sensorimotor or visuotactile signals induce and strengthen the illusion, since synchronous visuotactile stimulation overrides any contradicting proprioceptive input. Self-touch can be a key for body ownership, as it includes a multisensory correspondence between two simultaneous tactile inputs (one hand is touching, and the other hand is being touched) coupled with corresponding motor and proprioceptive signals.

The main purpose of this project is to understand the mechanism of embodiment of nonhumanoid objects through multisensory integration. Specifically, we will investigate the experience of virtual embodiment of two nonhumanoid avatar types, it is of a biophilic and technological origin versus a humanoid avatar. We will test how self-touch gives rise to the embodiment of these avatars and how it feels to touch the own nonhumanoid body. The secondary objective is to reveal whether nonhumanoid embodiment through self-touch can influence subjective human-likeness and closeness towards biophilic and machine-like characters. The research project will enrich our understanding of the bodily self and whether it is manipulable through virtual nonhumanoid embodiment. 

Already in the 1970’s, numerous experiments were proving that a brief touch of one’s arm may influence our behaviour in many ways. We may become more altruistic, compliant, or generous. This phenomenon in psychology is called the Midas touch effect. The name was inspired by the ancient Greek myth about the king Midas, who was granted a power of turning anything he touched into gold. Similarly, a waitress touching the client’s arm while asking whether everything is ok with the order can hope for a higher tip. This effect does not occur always in this way though. Research has proven that in Poland when a man touches another man while making a request, his touch may, in fact, decrease his chances for a positive reaction. Thus, this research project aimed to explain what modifies the efficiency of the Midas touch technique. We focused on two main hypotheses:

1. Poland is a country, in which male homophobia is very common. A male touch may bring homophobic associations and therefore, discourage the touched to interact in a  prosocial way.

2. Polish culture belongs to the circle of cultures of honour, in which men care and compete for the social status. Crossing personal boundaries through touch may evoke a feeling of threat, fear, or anger.

To verify these hypotheses we used the well-known decision-making game ultimatum in an immersive virtual reality version. The goal of the game is to divide how to split a pie between myself and the opponent. In a series of experiments, Polish men played with virtual humans (autonomous embodied agents) of various genders, social statuses and masculinity levels. We registered their psychophysiological reaction to the agent’s touch. In four experiments, we proved that men bring their prejudice and attitudes to the virtual environments, offering to the most feminine-looking male agent less than to the rest. Moreover, the touch was the most efficiently increasing compliance in the case of the low-status agent. Interestingly, the high-status agent was evoking high compliance in participants regardless of touching or not before making an offer. These results match with the current knowledge both within the psychology of social influence and virtual reality. They prove that people play with embodied agents “mindlessly” as if they were humans. Our participants played in a quite altruistic way, sharing with the opponents on average 40% of the coins and rejecting the extreme offers. This means they wanted to be fair instead of selfish, even though they were aware they played with a computer algorithm. Even though, they remained influenced by the authority of the high-status agent. They were also compliant to the agent of the low status but only in a situation when he used the Midas touch technique. On a physiological level, participants were reacting in a specific way to the touch of the embodied agents, it felt real to them.

Our studies offer answers to several research questions, which remained thus far unanswered, and enriched the discussion of the mechanisms underlying the efficiency of the Midas touch effect. They shed also new light on the role of social status and homophobia and their relationships with men’s compliance to the interpersonal touch. The most important conclusion for the society is that people comply to the virtual, embodied agents in the exact same way as they do to other people in the real world, even when the manipulation takes a shape of a subtle influence technique like the Midas touch. These results may have a significant impact on many disciplines, in which the virtual reality technology wins more and more applications, from education and gaming to therapeutic programs and marketing.

A brief touching of one’s arm or shoulder can increase our proneness to social influence techniques. Interestingly, a virtual touch also influences behaviour. This phenomenon, called the Midas touch effect, is not always equally efficient. Previous studies indicate that in Poland, men who were touched before they heard a request were not only resistant to the manipulation, but even less compliant than those who were not touched in similar circumstances. This result was explained by a strong homophobia among Polish males. Nevertheless, there is an alternative explanation based on social status, which indicates who, whom, and in which circumstances can touch. Cultural differences play a significant role too: in Poland interpersonal touch is much less common than, for instance, in Spain. Our study aimed to understand how cultural background, male homophobia, and social status increase the efficiency of the Midas touch effect. We ran the experiment in Warsaw and Barcelona in order to compare the behavior or men in a noncontact (Polish) and contact (Catalan) cultures. To obtain that goal, we collaborated with scientists from Event Lab at the University of Barcelona. We have built an immersive virtual environment UltimatumVR, which was based on a classic decision making game ultimatum. The goal of the game is to divide a certain amount of money between two players. One player makes an offer of the split and the other one responds to it either by accepting the offer or by rejecting it. If he/she accepts it, both players receive as much as they agreed to. In case of a rejection, none of the players receives anything. We designed an immersive version of that game where users played in a randomized order with two embodied agents which looked and behaved like humans, but were driven by a computer algorithm. Agents represented a man of a stereotypically high and low social status which were signalized by their profession, name, and clothing. Players used the HTC Vive head-mounted display to get immersed in the game’s world. In the game, they were going through a training to get familiar with the interface and then played 18 trials of ultimatum game, 9 with each of the agents. Additionally, before making the offer, the proposer could have touched the responder, which was transmitted by a vibration. The results suggest that in identical conditions, people from different cultural backgrounds react differently to simple social interactions in virtual reality. Moreover, a touch both in Poland and in Spain increased compliance towards the agent, which stands in opposition to the literature. Simultaneously, the more prejudiced toward homosexual men were Polish players, the more compliant they were towards the agent. In case of Catalans, the result was opposite – stronger homophobia predicted less accepted offers from the agent. It is important also to note that Polish men were generally much more homophobic than Catalan. Interestingly, it did not matter whether the agent represented a high or a low social status. At the same time, player’s generosity, measured as the offer’s value proposed to the agent, did not depend on homophobia, but on the extent to which he valued social status as an important element of life. Also here were observed cultural differences: in Poland, giving more importance to social status predicted less generous offers for the agent. In Catalonia though, the result was opposite: the more valued social status, the better offers received the agents. These results contribute to the discussion of human-computer interaction and of the masculinity image in different cultures. They indicate that the immersive virtual environments have to be designed with consideration of cultural differences to assure that users will read certain verbal and non-verbal messages in the expected way. The described study indicates also that the efficiency of social influence techniques may be modified by cultural and individual differences, and that virtual reality opens new paths to study all these aspects simultaneously.