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Body-as-Subject in the Four-Hand Illusion

In a recent study (Chen et al., 2018), we conducted a series of experiments that induced the “four-hand illusion”: using a head-mounted display (HMD), the participant adopted the experimenter's first-person perspective (1PP) as if it was his/her own 1PP. The participant saw four hands via the H...

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Autores principales: Liang, Caleb, Lee, Yen-Tung, Chen, Wen-Yeo, Huang, Hsu-Chia
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Frontiers Media S.A. 2018
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6157404/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30283376
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2018.01710
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author Liang, Caleb
Lee, Yen-Tung
Chen, Wen-Yeo
Huang, Hsu-Chia
author_facet Liang, Caleb
Lee, Yen-Tung
Chen, Wen-Yeo
Huang, Hsu-Chia
author_sort Liang, Caleb
collection PubMed
description In a recent study (Chen et al., 2018), we conducted a series of experiments that induced the “four-hand illusion”: using a head-mounted display (HMD), the participant adopted the experimenter's first-person perspective (1PP) as if it was his/her own 1PP. The participant saw four hands via the HMD: the experimenter's two hands from the adopted 1PP and the subject's own two hands from the adopted third-person perspective (3PP). In the active four-hand condition, the participant tapped his/her index fingers, imitated by the experimenter. Once all four hands acted synchronously and received synchronous tactile stimulations at the same time, many participants felt as if they owned two more hands. In this paper, we argue that there is a philosophical implication of this novel illusion. According to Merleau-Ponty (1945/1962) and Legrand (2010), one can experience one's own body or body-part either as-object or as-subject but cannot experience it as both simultaneously, i.e., these two experiences are mutually exclusive. Call this view the Experiential Exclusion Thesis. We contend that a key component of the four-hand illusion—the subjective experience of the 1PP-hands that involved both “kinesthetic sense of movement” and “visual sense of movement” (the movement that the participant sees via the HMD)—provides an important counter-example against this thesis. We argue that it is possible for a healthy subject to experience the same body-part both as-subject and as-object simultaneously. Our goal is not to annihilate the distinction between body-as-object and body-as-subject, but to show that it is not as rigid as suggested by the phenomenologists.
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spelling pubmed-61574042018-10-03 Body-as-Subject in the Four-Hand Illusion Liang, Caleb Lee, Yen-Tung Chen, Wen-Yeo Huang, Hsu-Chia Front Psychol Psychology In a recent study (Chen et al., 2018), we conducted a series of experiments that induced the “four-hand illusion”: using a head-mounted display (HMD), the participant adopted the experimenter's first-person perspective (1PP) as if it was his/her own 1PP. The participant saw four hands via the HMD: the experimenter's two hands from the adopted 1PP and the subject's own two hands from the adopted third-person perspective (3PP). In the active four-hand condition, the participant tapped his/her index fingers, imitated by the experimenter. Once all four hands acted synchronously and received synchronous tactile stimulations at the same time, many participants felt as if they owned two more hands. In this paper, we argue that there is a philosophical implication of this novel illusion. According to Merleau-Ponty (1945/1962) and Legrand (2010), one can experience one's own body or body-part either as-object or as-subject but cannot experience it as both simultaneously, i.e., these two experiences are mutually exclusive. Call this view the Experiential Exclusion Thesis. We contend that a key component of the four-hand illusion—the subjective experience of the 1PP-hands that involved both “kinesthetic sense of movement” and “visual sense of movement” (the movement that the participant sees via the HMD)—provides an important counter-example against this thesis. We argue that it is possible for a healthy subject to experience the same body-part both as-subject and as-object simultaneously. Our goal is not to annihilate the distinction between body-as-object and body-as-subject, but to show that it is not as rigid as suggested by the phenomenologists. Frontiers Media S.A. 2018-09-19 /pmc/articles/PMC6157404/ /pubmed/30283376 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2018.01710 Text en Copyright © 2018 Liang, Lee, Chen and Huang. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
spellingShingle Psychology
Liang, Caleb
Lee, Yen-Tung
Chen, Wen-Yeo
Huang, Hsu-Chia
Body-as-Subject in the Four-Hand Illusion
title Body-as-Subject in the Four-Hand Illusion
title_full Body-as-Subject in the Four-Hand Illusion
title_fullStr Body-as-Subject in the Four-Hand Illusion
title_full_unstemmed Body-as-Subject in the Four-Hand Illusion
title_short Body-as-Subject in the Four-Hand Illusion
title_sort body-as-subject in the four-hand illusion
topic Psychology
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6157404/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30283376
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2018.01710
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