How the Enfacement Illusion Blurs the Thin Line Between Self and Other

In this chapter, we describe the possibility, thanks to spatially and temporally synchronous interpersonal multisensory stimulation, to challenge self-face recognition and experience the Enfacement illusion, which is the feeling of looking at oneself in the mirror when in fact looking at another person’s face. In explaining how and why the Enfacement illusion occurs, we adopt a predictive coding account of self-face recognition and, according to it, we hypothesize the conditions under which the Enfacement illusion should be stronger. Lastly, we provide a tentative, predictive neuro-cognitive model of the Enfacement illusion, suggesting the processes and associated neural structures contributing to the insurgence and maintenance over time of this surprising subjective feeling.