Virtual reality: The images from the cameras were played on screens placed in front of the test subject's eyes, using a head-mounted display, so that when the subject looked down at their body, they saw the mannequin's instead of their own.
Credit: Karolinska Institute/PLoS One
"Important new milestone"
The illusion worked even when the camera holder differed greatly in appearance or was a different gender than the test subject. But it did not work with objects that did not appear human, such as a chair or large block.
"This study extends our knowledge of how the sensory information from our body is mapped onto our conscious perception of our body's interaction with the world," commented Stephen Macknik, Director of the Laboratory of Behavioural Neurophysiology at the Barrow Neurological Institute in the U.S. city of Phoenix, Arizona.
The new research, he said, is not only an "important new milestone", the ideas it presents might eventually be applied clinically to "paraplegics and quadriplegics, to help develop new ways to give them bodily control." Macknik was not a part of the research team.
