The rubber hand illusion: referral of touch and ownership

This project involves both behavioural experiments and computational modelling that elucidate the inherent structure of body ownership experiences.

The ability to recognize our body as our own is essential for survival, allowing us to distinguish it from the environment. The Rubber Hand Illusion (RHI) investigates this by inducing Ownership of a rubber hand. Participants may also experience Referral of Touch, feeling touches on the rubber hand.

While previously considered linked, this thesis shows these experiences are independent. These findings suggest that Ownership and Referral of Touch may involve distinct integration processes under Bayesian Causal Inference or function as separate nodes in a broader embodiment network.

This is the PhD project by Anantha Sivasubramanian at the University of Reading Malaysia, supervised together Dr Peter Scarfe (University of Reading, UK)