Rubber Hand Experiment Psychology

Take one piece of cardboard and draw a straight line down the middle of the longest side.

Rubber hand experiment psychology.

In preparation for the experiment obtain the following materials. Experiments with a fake body part have revealed how the brain becomes confused during a party trick known as the rubber hand illusion. 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. The trick s usefulness in neuroscience research belies its simplicity.

The experimenter stood in front of each seated participant who was asked to extend both arms on the table. To experience the rubber hand illusion you ll need a fake hand of some kind an inflated rubber glove will often do the trick a flat piece of cardboard and two. If you ve got a relatively lifelike rubber hand lying around along with a couple of helpers you can create the illusion right now. 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.

When and artificial hand is placed in a position compatible with the participant s own posture i e. First build the occluder box. In 1998 researchers matthew botvinick and jonathan cohen of the university of pittsburgh pa detailed an experiment that people would later refer to as the rubber hand illusion rhi. 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. A rubber hand two paint brushes scissors tape and several pieces of cardboard that are 1 ft high by 2 ft long.