Apparent increase in lip size influences two-point discrimination

Magnified vision of one’s body part has been shown to improve tactile discrimination. We used an anesthetic cream (AC) to determine if somesthetic stimulation that alters the perception of the size of one’s body would also improve two point-discrimination (2PD). In Experiment 1, application of AC caused an increase in perceived lip size and an improvement in a 2PD. As perceived lip size increased, subjects became more accurate in identifying that they had been touched in two locations. Experiment 2 confirmed this effect in a larger sample and introduced a control condition (no AC) that demonstrated that the change in performance was not attributable to practice or familiarity with the task. In Experiment 3, we showed that both AC and moisturizing cream improved subjects’ ability to indicate that they had been touched in 2 locations, but the improvement was modulated by perceived lip size only for AC. These results support the idea that changes in the body representation influence 2PD.