Beyond the colour of my skin: How skin colour affects the sense of body-ownership

作者：Farmer Harry^*; Tajadura Jimenez Ana; Tsakiris Manos

来源：Consciousness and Cognition, 2012, 21(3): 1242-1256.

DOI：10.1016/j.concog.2012.04.011

• Body-ownership
• Rubber hand illusion
• Multisensory
• Social groups
• Skin colour
• Body image

Multisensory stimulation has been shown to alter the sense of body-ownership. Given that perceived similarity between one's own body and those of others is crucial for social cognition, we investigated whether multisensory stimulation can lead participants to experience ownership over a hand of different skin colour. Results from two studies using introspective, behavioural and physiological methods show that, following synchronous visuotactile (VT) stimulation, participants can experience body-ownership over hands that seem to belong to a different racial group. Interestingly, a baseline measure of implicit racial bias did not predict whether participants would experience the RHI, but the overall strength of experienced body-ownership seemed to predict the participants' post-illusion implicit racial bias with those who experienced a stronger RHI showing a lower bias. These findings suggest that multisensory experiences can override strict ingroup/outgroup distinctions based on skin colour and point to a key role for sensory processing in social cognition.

• 出版日期2012-9