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Updated: Dec 30, 2025
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Creating Virtual-hand and Virtual-face Illusions to Investigate Self-representation
Published on: March 1, 2017
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The rubber hand illusion is influenced by self-recognition.
1School of Psychology and Institute of Neuroscience, Trinity College Dublin, Ireland.
Neuroscience Letters
|January 17, 2020
Summary
Visual self-recognition impacts the Rubber Hand Illusion (RHI). Individuals who cannot recognize their own hand show greater proprioceptive drift and faster RHI onset, suggesting memory influences body representation plasticity.
Area of Science:
- Neuroscience
- Cognitive Psychology
- Perception
Background:
- Susceptibility to the Rubber Hand Illusion (RHI) highlights how visuotactile input modulates body ownership.
- Object embodiment is limited, suggesting body ownership relies on a 'goodness-of-fit' with one's own body schema.
- Individual differences in body image perception hint at a role for visual self-recognition in RHI susceptibility.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate the influence of visual self-recognition on the subjective experience of the RHI.
- To measure proprioceptive drift and RHI onset time in relation to self-recognition ability.
Main Methods:
- Comparison of RHI experience between individuals who can and cannot visually identify their own hand.
- Measurement of subjective RHI experience, proprioceptive drift, and RHI onset time.
Main Results:
- No significant group differences in the subjective experience of the RHI were observed.
- Non-recognisers exhibited greater proprioceptive drift compared to the self-recognition group.
- Non-recognisers demonstrated an earlier onset time for the RHI than the self-recognition group.
Conclusions:
- Findings suggest a connection between long-term visual body representations and the plasticity of body representation.
- Self-recognition ability may influence the dynamics of body ownership illusions, specifically proprioceptive recalibration.
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