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Dagobah Resident
__http://www.topnews.in/self-trick-mind-shows-body-swap-research-295307
Self is a trick of the mind; shows Body swap researchBrain scientists have been successful in fooling people into believing that they are inside the body of another person or a plastic dummy.
The research may lead to practical applications such as more instinctive remote control of robots, treatments for phantom limb pain in amputees and possible treatments for anorexia.
The latest research actually follows a related study from the same group last year. In the last years research, the scientists convinced volunteers that were indulging in out-of-body experience.
Dr Henrik Ehrsson at the Karolinska Institute in Sweden said, "We are interested in how normal perception works, how we recognize our own body. And we do that by studying these perceptual illusions. Critically it depends on the visual perspective and the so-called multisensory integration or the combination of visual signals and tactile signals."
In the new study, two cameras were attached to the head of a dummy by Ehrsson and his colleague, Valeria Petkova. The cameras were hooked up to two small screens placed in front of their subject's eyes. This created an illusion that the person was looking through the mannequin's eyes. To illustrate an example, when they looked down they saw the dummy's body and not their own.
In order to create an illusion, the abdomen of the subject and the dummy were stroked at the same time by the team while the subject watched the stroking through the cameras on the dummy's head. Following this, a strong feeling that the dummy's body was their own was reported by the subject.
The subjects were so convinced by the illusion that when the researchers threatened the dummy with a knife, they recorded an increase in the subject's skin conductance response - the indicator of stress that polygraph lie detector tests rely on.
Ehrsson, who led the project said, "This shows how easy it is to change the brain's perception of the physical self. By manipulating sensory impressions, it's possible to fool the self not only out of its body but into other bodies too."
More weirdness to the experiment was added when the same trick was played by replacing the mannequin with a human. The cameras were attached to the head of another person and same double stroking routine was carried out and the subjects were convinced that they were occupying another person's body.
Ehrsson said, "We want to use the out-of-body illusion to try to treat amputee patients that experience phantom limb pain in the arm or leg they have lost. We have begun to realize that there could be a link between pain perception and the feeling of ownership of the body."
The research can also be potentially used for the patients suffering from anorexia. Ehrsson added, "These people become obsessed with reducing their own weight even when they become dangerously thin. Possibly this approach could be used for new diagnostic tools and maybe therapeutic tools to train people better to recognise their actual body size."
"Another application is in remotely operated robots, for example in nuclear power plants or surgery. The hope is to elicit a full-blown illusion that you are the robot," said Ehrsson.
Self is a trick of the mind; shows Body swap researchBrain scientists have been successful in fooling people into believing that they are inside the body of another person or a plastic dummy.
The research may lead to practical applications such as more instinctive remote control of robots, treatments for phantom limb pain in amputees and possible treatments for anorexia.
The latest research actually follows a related study from the same group last year. In the last years research, the scientists convinced volunteers that were indulging in out-of-body experience.
Dr Henrik Ehrsson at the Karolinska Institute in Sweden said, "We are interested in how normal perception works, how we recognize our own body. And we do that by studying these perceptual illusions. Critically it depends on the visual perspective and the so-called multisensory integration or the combination of visual signals and tactile signals."
In the new study, two cameras were attached to the head of a dummy by Ehrsson and his colleague, Valeria Petkova. The cameras were hooked up to two small screens placed in front of their subject's eyes. This created an illusion that the person was looking through the mannequin's eyes. To illustrate an example, when they looked down they saw the dummy's body and not their own.
In order to create an illusion, the abdomen of the subject and the dummy were stroked at the same time by the team while the subject watched the stroking through the cameras on the dummy's head. Following this, a strong feeling that the dummy's body was their own was reported by the subject.
The subjects were so convinced by the illusion that when the researchers threatened the dummy with a knife, they recorded an increase in the subject's skin conductance response - the indicator of stress that polygraph lie detector tests rely on.
Ehrsson, who led the project said, "This shows how easy it is to change the brain's perception of the physical self. By manipulating sensory impressions, it's possible to fool the self not only out of its body but into other bodies too."
More weirdness to the experiment was added when the same trick was played by replacing the mannequin with a human. The cameras were attached to the head of another person and same double stroking routine was carried out and the subjects were convinced that they were occupying another person's body.
Ehrsson said, "We want to use the out-of-body illusion to try to treat amputee patients that experience phantom limb pain in the arm or leg they have lost. We have begun to realize that there could be a link between pain perception and the feeling of ownership of the body."
The research can also be potentially used for the patients suffering from anorexia. Ehrsson added, "These people become obsessed with reducing their own weight even when they become dangerously thin. Possibly this approach could be used for new diagnostic tools and maybe therapeutic tools to train people better to recognise their actual body size."
"Another application is in remotely operated robots, for example in nuclear power plants or surgery. The hope is to elicit a full-blown illusion that you are the robot," said Ehrsson.
