NEC Seminar, 10 October 2025
Where: Sears 439
Speaker: Oranatt Chaichanasittikarn
Lab: Luke Lab, Human Fusions Institute
Advisor: Luke Osborn
Title: Understanding Prosthesis Embodiment Using Neural Activity
Abstract: Prosthesis embodiment is a critical feature that can provide users the sense of realism and connection to their devices. Embodiment refers to how users perceive technology as physically connected to their body or integrated with their thoughts, emotions, and sense of self. In prosthesis embodiment, users feel that their prosthetic limbs have become part of their body. Advanced prostheses with tactile feedback can create realistic touch sensations, which then leads to an increased sense of embodiment. In addition to sensory feedback, embodiment consists of several subcomponents, including psychological sense of ownership, agency, body representations, and perception. However, quantifying the degree of embodiment remains an active research challenge. Our research primarily investigates how touch sensations influence overall embodiment and how these effects can be objectively measured.
This presentation will cover the work where we utilize neural activity measurements (electrocorticography or ECoG) to study cortical activity changes in response to varying intensity amplitude of haptic vibration. We investigated high-gamma activity in the somatosensory cortex to determine whether it reflects touch perception itself or only represents the haptic stimulation input. The results suggested that high-gamma activity better reflects perceived intensity than the actual vibration amplitude. Neural activity, particularly high-gamma activity, could provide insights on the perceived quality of haptic sensations. This work demonstrates that neural activity could potentially be an objective marker to help quantify the degree in which the users perceive the sensory inputs of a system as part of their own body.