Santa Monica College Rubber Hand Illusion Experiment Paper

It has been reported that you can experience the rubber hand illusion without using a rubber hand. Instead of the hand, you trace the outline of the person’s hand onto a sheet of paper. I’m curious whether this is true, as it speaks to the question of how plastic our body schemas are. I’d like you to try it and report your results back to the class. The question is whether the participants in your informal experiment report that the drawing of their hand becomes a part of their body schema.

This seems like a reasonable process to me (but feel free to modify it):Review the rubber hand illusion video. If you wish, you can view other examples on YouTube. Just search for “rubber hand illusion.”Recruit a few friends or family members to participate in your study.Trace the outline of their right hand onto a sheet of paper.Perform the rubber hand procedure as you saw it in the video, or invent a variation. (You don’t necessarily have to smash their drawing with a hammer, but go for it if you wish.)Ask your participants to describe their experience, and take notes on their responses.Switch roles. Have one of your participants serve as the experimenter and YOU be the subject of the experiment.

Write up a brief report summarizing what you found