Hands only illusion: multisensory integration elicits sense of ownership for body parts but not for non-corporeal objects.
The experience of body ownership can be successfully manipulated during the rubber hand illusion using synchronous multisensory stimulation. The hypothesis that multisensory integration is both a necessary and sufficient condition for body ownership is debated. We systematically varied the appearance of the object that was stimulated in synchrony or asynchrony with the participant's hand. A viewed object that was transformed in three stages from a plain wooden block to a wooden hand was compared to a realistic rubber hand. Introspective and behavioural results show that participants experience a sense of ownership only for the realistic prosthetic hand, suggesting that not all objects can be experienced as part of one's body. Instead, the viewed object must fit with a reference model of the body that contains important structural information about body parts. This body model can distinguish between corporeal and non-corporeal objects, and it therefore plays a critical role in maintaining a coherent sense of one's body.
Tsakiris
Manos
M
Department of Psychology, Royal Holloway, University of London, Egham, Surrey, UK. manos.tsakiris@rhul.ac.uk
Carpenter
Lewis
L
James
Dafydd
D
Fotopoulou
Aikaterini
A
D000704:Analysis of Variance; D001186:Artificial Limbs; D001828:Body Image; D005260:Female; D006225:Hand; D006801:Humans; D007088:Illusions; D008297:Male; D008960:Models, Psychological; D010775:Photic Stimulation; D011434:Proprioception; D011601:Psychophysics; D012408:Rubber; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires; D014796:Visual Perception; D014934:Wood; D055815:Young Adult
D012408:Rubber