Skip to main content
Kent Academic Repository

Dissociation of feeling and belief in the rubber hand illusion

Tamè, Luigi, Linkenauger, Sally A., Longo, Matthew R. (2018) Dissociation of feeling and belief in the rubber hand illusion. PLOS ONE, 13 (10). ISSN 1932-6203. (doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0206367) (KAR id:71618)

Abstract

The Rubber Hand Illusion (RHI) has been widely used to investigate the perception of the bodily self. Commonly used measures of the illusion are self-report questionnaires and proprioceptive drift of the participants’ hands towards the rubber hand. Recent studies have shown that these measures can be dissociated, suggesting they may arise from distinct mechanisms. In previous studies using questionnaires, participants were asked to base responses on their subjective feelings of body ownership, rather than their beliefs. This makes sense given the obvious fact that whereas participants may feel like the rubber hand is part of their body, they do not believe that it is. It is not clear, however, whether a similar dissociation between feelings and beliefs also exists for proprioceptive drift. Here, we investigated the presence of a dissociation between feeling and belief in the context of the RHI. When participants reported their feelings there was an increase both in the sense of body ownership over the fake hand as well as in the proprioceptive drift, compared to when they reported their beliefs. Strikingly, unlike the sense of ownership, proprioceptive drift was unaffected by the synchrony of stimulation. This may be an important way in which the two measures of the RHI differ.

Item Type: Article
DOI/Identification number: 10.1371/journal.pone.0206367
Subjects: B Philosophy. Psychology. Religion
Divisions: Divisions > Division of Human and Social Sciences > School of Psychology
Depositing User: Luigi Tame
Date Deposited: 14 Jan 2019 21:32 UTC
Last Modified: 04 Mar 2024 19:55 UTC
Resource URI: https://kar.kent.ac.uk/id/eprint/71618 (The current URI for this page, for reference purposes)

University of Kent Author Information

  • Depositors only (login required):

Total unique views for this document in KAR since July 2020. For more details click on the image.