Simulated visual hallucinations in virtual reality enhance cognitive flexibility.

ABSTRACT: Historically, psychedelic drugs are known to modulate cognitive flexibility, a central aspect of cognition permitting adaptation to changing environmental demands. Despite proof suggesting phenomenological similarities between artificially-induced and actual psychedelic altered perception, experimental evidence is still lacking about whether the former is also able to modulate cognitive flexibility. To address this, we measure participants' cognitive flexibility through behavioral tasks after the exposure to virtual reality panoramic videos and their hallucinatory-like counterparts generated by the DeepDream algorithm. Results show that the estimated semantic network has a flexible structure when preceded by altered videos. Crucially, following the simulated psychedelic exposure, individua

SUBMITTER: Rastelli C 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8901713 | biostudies-literature | 2022 Mar

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature