Mask in the mirror: the living mask illusion

Self-perception in a mirror is a dynamic process involving self-motion and autonomous self-exploratory control of facial poses and expressions.In a previous work, apparitions of strange faces in the mirror were experienced, often as other beings appearing in place of one's own face. The purpose of the present study was to investigate whether individuals would attribute apparent life to an inanimate but human-like mask. Participants wore an original ritual mask and engaged in mirror-gazing themselves whilst wearing the mask, in a quiet and dimly lit room. Dependent variables were the event-related responses and the phenomenological descriptions. Results showed that, in the worn-mask condition, all participants perceived apparitions of the living-mask. When a mask is worn, it temporarily turns into an embodied part of one's self or, in other words, the self is projected into a physical object, the mask, that is afforded into one's body neighbourhood. The experimental findings can be explained by the effect of embodied information from the observer's body whilst wearing the mask. Binding between embodied-self (proprioceptive, kinesthetic, action, and motion information from observer's body) and visual information (reflected-mask) can produce a temporary global representation of worn-mask as a living-self. The living-self in the mask becomes the dissociative-other in order to preserve the individual's ego identity