Scientists from the Brain, Body, and Self Laboratory at Karolinska Institutet in Sweden equipped a couple of friends with video glasses so that they could see things from each other’s point of view. “To promote the illusion,” Science Daily reports, “they simultaneously applied touches to both participants on matching body parts so that they could also feel what they saw in the glasses.” They discovered that the study participants “liked themselves more than the friend in whose body they were.”
After only a few moments, the illusion generally worked; to show that it did, the researchers threatened the friend’s body with a paring knife and found that the participant broke out in sweat as if they were the one who was threatened. “Body swapping is no longer a domain reserved for science fiction movies,” says Tacikowski.
Participants only felt that they had been “awake in someone else’s body for a short period of time,” but that was long enough to significantly change their self-perception. Before changing the body, participants assess their friends on characteristics such as speech, cheerfulness, independence and confidence. Compared to this baseline, during the exchange they tend to rate themselves as more similar to the friend in whose body they were.
Testing in a doctor’s office as a school nurse can yield results in about 15 minutes
LADS THE REST
Biologist Merlin Sheldrake is an evangelist for the “neglected megacent” of mycology, the study of fungi and all the wonder in them. According to Sheldrake, molds are the future – with clues about our environment and as a source of sustainable food, packaging and green building materials. Son of author and French science researcher Rupert Sheldrake, Merlin […]
LADS THE REST
The Somali sengi, a type of elephant crawler with an elongated nose, had not been observed since the 1960s. It was recently rediscovered by scientists who lured them out of their rocky habitats with peanut butter, oatmeal and yeast. The Somali cutie was originally discovered in neighboring Ethiopia, according to Steven Heritage of Duke University: Here we are […]
LADS THE REST
For the most part, we are all staying close to home this summer. And those are not just international travel as well as jet set-ups across the country that are on hold. Even traditional cars are expected to close at least 15 percent from last year’s figures. It will be the first decline in American summer travel […]
LADS THE REST
Remember that episode of The Simpsons where Homer decided to get grossly overweight so he could claim a disability and work from home? Once he had achieved his dream, it was for the most part the immobile tool of Homer’s “touching broom”, a normal broom that Homer used to tap on the keys of his computer while sitting […]
LADS THE REST
Although we do not have the statistics for us, you know that the annual Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas has seen a lot of earbuds and earbud manufacturers have been making their way through the show over the years. Dozens? For sure. Hundreds? Probably. Yet the CES Innovation Awards still looked after all those buttons […]
LADS THE REST
