Figure 2.

Experimental procedure. After selecting the avatar most similar to their perceived body and the one most resembling their ideal body, participants were enrolled in embodiment blocks in which synchronous and asynchronous interpersonal multisensory stimulation (IMS) were applied to three different bodies (the perceived body, −15% thinner body, +15% fatter body). After each embodiment block participants repeated the perceived and ideal body tasks to measure the effects of the embodiment of different sized avatars on body dissatisfaction. Explicit and implicit measures of the embodiment illusion, as well as the emotional response after being exposed to a/synchronous touching of different sized avatars were recorded after each embodiment block. At the end of the experiment we asked participants to rate from a first-person perspective the three avatars in terms of similarity to their own body and overall attractiveness.