What is Body Ownership

Advanced communication technologies, such as virtual reality or certain types of robots, are able to induce the illusion of adopting a surrogate body as the own body. The sense of owning an artificial body, technologically mediated, in which one perceives to be located, is introduced as mediated embodiment. The concept has not been carefully conceptualized or clearly distinguished from other acceptations of embodiment, coming from a wide range of disciplines. A definition is provided which narrows the concept to accurately describe the experience of embodiment in new communication technologies. In addition, the text gathers the closest constructs related to embodiment in the Communication literature, reviews the most important studies on mediated embodiment, provides potential approaches to its study, and outlines the direction that this field of study is taking.