Related Experiment Video
Updated: Aug 20, 2025

Creating Virtual-hand and Virtual-face Illusions to Investigate Self-representation
Published on: March 1, 2017
The slime hand illusion: Nonproprioceptive ownership distortion specific to the skin region
Kenri Kodaka1, Yutaro Sato1, Kento Imai1
1Nagoya City University, Japan.
Abstract:
The "slime hand illusion" is a simple and robust technique that uses mirror-visual feedback to produce a nonproprioceptive ownership distortion. The illusion can be easily evoked by the participant watching the experimenter pinching and pulling a chunk of slime in a mirror while the participant's hand, hidden behind the mirror, is similarly manipulated. This procedure produces a feeling of one of their fingers or the skin of their whole hand being stretched or deformed in a similar way to the visible slime. A public experiment found that more than 90% of participants reported a strong sense of skin or finger stretching. This report details a laboratory experiment performed to characterize the mechanisms behind the illusion more robustly. It reproduced this result and found that participants experienced a drift in their sense of skin location of approximately 30 cm on average, which is beyond the conventionally accepted range of proprioceptive drift.
More Related Videos
Related Concept Videos
Somatosensation
Sensory Functions of the Skin
There are two main categories of receptors on the skin: capsulated and non-capsulated. The non-capsulated ones are mainly the pain receptors. The capsulated ones can be further categorized based on the...
Muscles of the Forearm that Move the Hand and Fingers
Anterior Compartment
The anterior compartment muscles originate from the humerus. They primarily function as flexors and are also known as flexor muscles. They typically insert on the carpals, metacarpals, and phalanges. The superficial layer includes the flexor carpi...
Nonconscious Mimicry
Sensory Perception: Organization of the Somatosensory System
The receptor level:
The receptor level is the first stage of sensation. It involves the detection of a stimulus by specialized sensory receptors. The stimulus must arrive within the receptor's receptive field. Next, the receptor converts the energy of the...
Accessory Structures of the Skin: Sweat Glands
Sweat glands are classified as merocrine glands; that is, the secretions are excreted by exocytosis through a duct without affecting the cells of the gland. There...

