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Weird Experiment Transposes Your 'Body' to Mannequins, Other Folks

by Lee Bains on December 3, 2008 at 06:46 PM


A research team at the Karolinska Institute in Sweden has successfully engineered an experiment in which test subjects perceive themselves as occupying bodies other than their own, USA Today tells us.

The study was designed to research technology potentially useful for robotics and the treatment of sensory disorders. Head researcher Henrik Ehrsson told USA Today, "The participants has [sic] a sensory experience of having a new body. They of course realize that it is an illusion, but they can't think it away," he told Science Fair.

With the aid of cameras, and a mechanism that touches the subject's skin and that of the second body simultaneously, the typical test subject -- over the course of the experiments -- perceived himself as being face-to-face with himself transposed into another person's body, as well as a mannequin. The visual-sensory experiment actually had test subjects "shaking their own hands."

While the success of this experiment could be a boon to disabled folks interested in robotic appendages, we suspect it will be some time before science is able to engineer fully functional, sensitive prosthetics. Let alone prosthetics that allow full-fledged bumping and grinding. [From: Science Fair]

Tags: health, research, science, study, sweden, weird science, WeirdScience

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