"That's not a real body": identifying stimulus qualities that modulate synaesthetic experiences of touch.
Mirror-touch synaesthesia is a condition where observing touch to another's body induces a subjective tactile sensation on the synaesthetes body. The present study explores which characteristics of the inducing stimulus modulate the synaesthetic touch experience. Fourteen mirror-touch synaesthetes watched videos depicting a touch event while indicating (i) whether the video induced a tactile sensation, (ii) on which side of their body they felt this sensation and (iii) the intensity of the experienced sensation. Results indicate that the synaesthetes experience stronger tactile sensations when observing touch to real bodies, whereas observing touch to dummy bodies, pictures of bodies and disconnected dummy body parts elicited weaker sensations. These results suggest that mirror-touch synaesthesia is not entirely bottom-up driven, but top-down information, such as knowledge about real and dummy body parts, also modulate the intensity of the experience.
School of Psychology and Sackler Centre for Consciousness Science, University of Sussex, Falmer, Brighton BN1 9QH, UK.
Henning
H
Holle
Michael
M
Banissy
Thomas
T
Wright
Natalie
N
Bowling
Jamie
J
Ward
D000328:Adult; D005260:Female; D007839:Functional Laterality; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D010775:Photic Stimulation; D010812:Physical Stimulation; D012677:Sensation; D014110:Touch; D055698:Touch Perception; D014741:Video Recording; D014796:Visual Perception; D055815:Young Adult