How do we acquire a mental representation of our own face? Recently, synchronous, but not asynchronous, interpersonal multisensory stimulation (IMS) between one's own and another person's face was used to evoke changes in self-identification (enfacement illusion). We investigated the conscious experience of these changes with principal component analyses (PCA) that revealed that while the conscious experience during synchronous IMS focused on resemblance and similarity with the other's face, during asynchronous IMS it focused on multisensory stimulation. Analyses on the identified common factor structure revealed significant quantitative differences between synchronous and asynchronous IMS on self-identification and perceived similarity with the other's\udface. Experiment 2 revealed that participants with lower interoceptive sensitivity experienced stronger enfacement illusion. Overall, self identification and body-ownership rely on similar basic mechanisms of multisensory integration, but the effects of multisensory input on their\udexperience are qualitatively different, possibly underlying the face's unique role as a marker of selfhood.
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