Immersive exposure to simulated visual hallucinations modulates high-level human cognition.
Consciousness and cognition February 1, 2025 Antonino Greco, Clara Rastelli, Andrea Ubaldi et al.
Exposure to simulated psychedelic hallucinations in virtual reality increased cognitive flexibility, as shown by reduced task-switching costs, compared to naturalistic VR exposure. No significant differences were found in linguistic automatic association tasks at word or sentence levels. Visually grounded high-level cognitive processes were modulated by the simulated hallucinations. The findings offer insights into bottom-up and top-down cognitive processes in altered states of consciousness without drugs, potentially informing neuroscience and clinical applications.