Swedish researchers create body-swap illusion

Reuters ^ | Wed Dec 3, 2008 11:04am EST | Reporting by Maggie Fox; Editing by Julie Steenhuysen

[egannacht]

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Researchers using closed-circuit televisions to create an illusion have made volunteers virtually swap bodies, even making women believe they were in a man's body and vice-versa. [Snip]

The illusion only goes so far. The researchers said they could not fool their volunteers into thinking they were a box, for example.

[egannacht]

THe article goes on to say, "They set up a series of experiments aimed at fooling their volunteers, each an extension of a common illusion in which people can be fooled into thinking a rubber hand is their own.

For the illusion, the volunteer's real hand is concealed and stroked at the same time the visible rubber hand is. The brain will often trick the volunteer into truly feeling as if the rubber hand is his or her own hand.

Petkova and Ehrsson went further, using a closed-circuit camera to fool their volunteers into believing a rubber mannequin was in fact their own body -- and eventually, that another human being was.

"This effect is so robust that, while experiencing being in another person's body, a participant can face his or her biological body and shake hands with it without breaking the illusion," they wrote.

"Two closed-circuit television cameras were positioned on a male mannequin such that each recorded events from the position corresponding to one of the mannequin's eyes," they wrote.

"A set of head-mounted displays connected to the cameras was worn by the participants, and connected in such a way that the images from the left and right video cameras were presented on the left and right eye displays, respectively, providing a true stereoscopic image," they added.

"Participants were asked to tilt their heads downwards as if looking down at their bodies. Thus, the participants saw the mannequin's body where they expected to see their own."

As in the rubber hand illusion, the experimenters touched the volunteers' bodies at the same time as they touched the mannequin.

"...it was evident that the participants had felt the mannequin's body to be their own body," they wrote.

Finally, they tried a full body swap between two volunteers and it worked.

[TruthWillWin]

This trick is done with beer?

[ClearCase_guy]

Here in America, many people were fooled into thinking that Obama was a reasonable choice for president.

[2banana]

The men then worried if their @sses were too big and then the women pretended to listen to the men (err...women) only to turn the HD TV on to watch football...

[EternalVigilance]

That’s nothing. Through the use of illusion, a good deal of America was convinced that John McCain is actually a republican.

[egannacht]

THAT BIG!

[egannacht]

I remember the old egg cracking on the head trick in school.

But the only trick I tried when drinking involved putting people’s fingers in warm water.

[egannacht]

I think they call that mass hysteria.

[USNBandit]

"That's neat, can I try that?"

[A knight without armor]

I remember seeing on tv how they help amputee people deal with phantom pain by creating the illusion that their missing part is there. For example they had the person sit in front of a box with a mirror on one inside side. When they put their existing arm or hand in there it looked like there were two and that was enough for the pain to go away. It was purely a visual thing that tricked their mind.

[sig226]

This is idiotic. They touched the test subject and showed a video that depicted a subject touched in the exact same place. They told the subject that he was in the video, although he wasn’t. He believed his own senses and what the experimenters told him. Then they swapped genders and found someone who was stupid enough to believe that he grew brests just in time for the scientist to feel him up on tv.

Here’s the missed opportunity. Whoever believed that one is so functionally stupid that he is worthy of a lifetime of study. Imagine a brain scan of an adult who has never had an independant thought pass through his brain. Never mind the psychology, the implications for astrophysics are enormous. Here is a living, breathing black hole and it probably works for the government. If only they started this test before they built the Large Hadron Collider.

This was done in Stockholm. These people award the Nobel Prize. I only thought this was from The Onion after I read the whole article.

[martin_fierro]

[Global2010]

Gee thanks for the double vision cruise (gross out).

[egannacht]

[andy58-in-nh]

I’ll top you: a majority of Americans were fooled into believing that Obama is qualified to be President.

[egannacht]

Or Marilyn Monroe and Truman Capote



Lord knows Truman thought it worked.