Out-Of-Body Illusion in Brain Scan Movie (VIDEO)
Caption
To elicit the out-of-body illusion, the participants viewed a stranger's body, lying in the corner of the room, being touched while they received identical touches on their real body (hidden from view). To examine whether the illusion actually worked, the scientists would threaten the stranger's body with a knife and measure the participants' stress response. The results showed that the knife threat lead to increased skin sweating and level of neural activity in fear centers of the brain during periods when the illusion was experienced compared to when it was broken, suggesting that the brain interpreted the stranger's body as one's own. Conversely, when the scientists threatened the participants' real body with a large rubber sledgehammer, experiencing the illusion was associated with a lower stress response; as if the seen physical body belonged to someone else.
Credit
Arvid Guterstam
Usage Restrictions
This movie may only be published/reproduced on connection to editorial reports about the research of Prof. Henrik Ehrsson, Karolinska Institutet, Sweden.
License
Licensed content