Brain tricked into 'body-swapping'
Wednesday, 03 Dec 2008 02:31
Brain baffled by body-swapping boffins
Science In Focus
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Swedish scientists have successfully fooled humans into thinking they have swapped bodies with other people's.
Researchers at the Karolinska Institutet medical university made subjects think they had swapped bodies with a mannequin.
Participants in the experiment were placed in front of two screens showing the view from the mannequin's eyes, meaning they 'saw' what the mannequin could see.
The mannequin's head was lowered slowly before subjects watched its body being touched with two sticks.
When this occurred the subjects felt they were being touched in the same way, creating the body-swapping illusion.
"This shows how easy it is to change the brain's perception of the physical self," project leader Henrik Ehrsson said.
"By manipulating sensory impressions, it's possible to fool the self not only out of its body but into other bodies too."
Further experiments using real people instead of mannequins corroborated the experience, while stress was experienced when a knife was held to the camera-wearer's arm.
Scientists hope their work will be useful in the development of virtual reality applications and robot technology.