Rubber Hand Experiment Psychology

Experiments with a fake body part have revealed how the brain becomes confused during a party trick known as the rubber hand illusion.

Rubber hand experiment psychology.

A rubber hand experiment conducted at vanderbilt lab in 2011 produced an observable repeatable out of body experience source. A rubber hand two paint brushes scissors tape and several pieces of cardboard that are 1 ft high by 2 ft long. When and artificial hand is placed in a position compatible with the participant s own posture i e. Since earlier work suggests a right hemispheric dominance for body ownership experience ocklenburg et al 2011 our current experiment was administered only to each participant s left hand and a corresponding rubber hand was employed.

First build the occluder box. If you ve got a relatively lifelike rubber hand lying around along with a couple of helpers you can create the illusion right now. The trick s usefulness in neuroscience research belies its simplicity. A position that is plausible anatomically with regard to the participant s body then the combination of visual input from the rubber hand and tactile stimulation to the participant s hidden hand produces the feeling that the rubber hand is part of the body in around half of participants.

It can be induced experimentally by manipulating the visual perspective of the subject and also supplying visual and sensory signals which correlate to the subject s body. The rubber hand experiment plays a small but important roll in researching multisensory integration and. Researchers in italy performed the trick on a group of. Multisensory integration the area of psychology that works with the study of how information from different sensory modules may be integrated by the nervous system conclusion.

The experimenter stood in front of each seated participant who was asked to extend both arms on the table. Body transfer illusion is the illusion of owning either a part of a body or an entire body other than one s own thus it is sometimes referred to as body ownership in the research literature. Take one piece of cardboard and draw a straight line down the middle of the longest side.