How does musicians’ motor experience influence the sense of ownership? A preliminary study.

Bodily self-awareness is a multidimensional construct defined as conscious experiences bound to the self as a unitary entity. Bodily self-awareness, among other components, encompasses the fundamental sense of body ownership. However, the way in which the modality of body ownership can be coherent and maintained is not fully comprehended. It has been claimed that integrating proprioceptive interoceptive and exteroceptive signals might have a crucial role in the senses of body ownership. Lately in literature, there is an increased focus on the contribution of long-term motor training to build and maintain a sense of body ownership. Motor expertise is an ability that characterizes specific populations such as musicians. The importance of playing a musical instrument for the anatomical, cognitive, and behavioral levels is a well-studied topic. However, the comprehension of the way in which this modality interplays contributing and maintaining a coherent sense of bodily self-awareness is not fully understood. It has been postulated that the integration of proprioceptive, interoceptive, and exteroceptive signals can also occur during movements. For instance, studies on healthy subjects, especially musicians, have suggested that musicians are less susceptible to the rubber hand illusion paradigm. The current study aims to investigate differences in bodily self-awareness components between musicians and non-musicians by applying the mirror box illusion paradigm. Results suggested that musicians showed less proprioceptive drift in both conditions, compared to non-musicians. Moreover, results showed significant differences between the groups in two subcomponents of embodiment, the location, and the deafference. Musicians compared to non-musicians experienced less difficulty locating their left hand, and they experienced less feeling of numbness. These results underline the importance of motor expertise and the importance of experience in prolonged movements, in maintaining a coherent sense of body ownership and bodily self-awareness.