Abstract
The rubber hand illusion (RHI) is a perceptual illusion in which one is made to feel that a hand-shaped object is part of their body. This illusion is believed to be the result of the integration of afferent information. However, there has been an increasing amount of evidence that suggests efferent information plays a role in this illusion as well. Previous research has found that individuals who are afflicted by pathological lack of movement experience the RHI more vividly than control participants. Whereas individuals who move their hands more than the general population (i.e. professional pianists) experience the RHI less vividly than control participants. Based upon the available evidence it would seem that muscle activity prior to experiencing the RHI should be associated with how vividly one experiences different indices of the illusion. In the present study we tested this possibility by having participants perform a maximum voluntary muscle contraction task prior to experiencing three variants of the RHI (moving active, moving passive and classic). It was found that electromyographic features known to be indicative of muscle fatigue exhibited a positive association with proprioceptive drift when stimulation was synchronous or visual movement only (with the exception of the passive moving RHI synchronous condition). More work is needed to better characterize the muscular processes associated with experiencing the RHI.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
Availability of data and material
The datasets generated during and analyzed during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.
Notes
Active and passive variants of the mRHI were included to see if the MVC task had different effects on volitional and non-volitional movements.
Prior to performing the study an a priori power analysis was performed using G*Power (version 3.1.9.7; Faul et al., 2009). To estimate the minimum sample size needed the authors computed partial eta squared (0.073) from della Gatta’s (2016) normalized motor evoked potential data. A minimum sample size of 15 was indicated.
Thumb-middle finger opposition was chosen because it was found to produce a stronger signal during the planning stages of the study.
It should be noted that questionnaires were completed between the MVC task and RHI in order to give the experimenter time to clear off the equipment from the MVC task (which could potentially be distracting to the participant while they were experiencing the RHI).
Three participants, all of whom experienced synchronous stimulation before the visual movement only condition, exhibited involuntary finger movements that occurred slightly after the rubber hand moved. All were asked after the trial if the movements were volitional and to describe them. One participant described experiencing an electrical shock sensation in their arm while it happened. Another described it as feeling like their hand was being controlled (the exact term they used was “parasite-ing”). The third participant was unaware of the movement. This phenomenon bears a striking resemblance to the findings of Shibuya et al. (2018) and Teaford et al. (2021b).
References
Alaydin, H. C., & Cengiz, B. (2021). Body ownership, sensorimotor integration and motor cortical excitability: A TMS study about rubber hand illusion. Neuropsychologia, 161, 107992. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2021.107992
Al-Falahe, N. A., Nagaoka, M., & Vallbo, A. B. (1990). Response profiles of human muscle: Afferents during active finger movements. Brain, 113(2), 325–346. https://doi.org/10.1093/brain/113.2.325
Barbe, M. T., Amarell, M., Snijders, A. H., Florin, E., Quatuor, E. L., Schönau, E., & Timmermann, L. (2014). Gait and upper limb variability in Parkinson’s disease patients with and without freezing of gait. Journal of Neurology, 261(2), 330–342. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00415-013-7199-1
Botvinick, M., & Cohen, J. (1998). Rubber hands ‘feel’ touch that eyes see. Nature, 391(6669), 756–756. https://doi.org/10.1038/35784
Brozzoli, C., Gentile, G., & Ehrsson, H. H. (2012). That’s near my hand! Parietal and premotor coding of hand-centered space contributes to localization and self-attribution of the hand. Journal of Neuroscience, 32, 14573–14582. https://doi.org/10.1523/JNEUROSCI.2660-12.2012
Buckmaster, C. L., Rathmann-Bloch, J. E., de Lecea, L., Schatzberg, A. F., & Lyons, D. M. (2020). Multisensory modulation of body ownership in mice. Neuroscience of Consciousness, 200(1), niz019. https://doi.org/10.1093/nc/niz019
Burin, D., Garbarini, F., Bruno, V., Fossataro, C., Destefanis, C., Berti, A., & Pia, L. (2017a). Movements and body ownership: Evidence from the rubber hand illusion after mechanical limb immobilization. Neuropsychologia, 107, 41–47. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2017.11.004
Burin, D., Livelli, A., Garbarini, F., Fossataro, C., Folegatti, A., Gindri, P., & Pia, L. (2015). Are movements necessary for the sense of body ownership? Evidence from the rubber hand illusion in pure hemiplegic patients. PLoS ONE, 10(3), e0117155. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0117155
Burin, D., Pyasik, M., Salatino, A., & Pia, L. (2017b). That’s my hand! Therefore, that’s my willed action: How body ownership acts upon conscious awareness of willed actions. Cognition, 166, 164–173. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cognition.2017.05.035
Burke, D., Hagbarth, K. E., & Löfstedt, L. (1978). Muscle spindle activity in man during shortening and lengthening contractions. The Journal of Physiology, 277(1), 131–142. https://doi.org/10.1113/jphysiol.1978.sp012265
Chancel, M., & Ehrsson, H. H. (2020). Which hand is mine? Discriminating body ownership perception in a two-alternative forced-choice task. Attention, Perception, & Psychophysics, 82(8), 4058–4083. https://doi.org/10.3758/s13414-020-02107-x
de Gatta, F., Garbarini, F., Puglisi, G., Leonetti, A., Berti, A., & Borroni, P. (2016). Decreased motor cortex excitability mirrors own hand disembodiment during the rubber hand illusion. eLife, 5, e14972. https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.14972
de Haan, A. M., Van Stralen, H. E., Smit, M., Keizer, A., Van der Stigchel, S., & Dijkerman, H. C. (2017). No consistent cooling of the real hand in the rubber hand illusion. Acta Psychologica, 179, 68–77. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.actpsy.2017.07.003
Dummer, T., Picot-Annand, A., Neal, T., & Moore, C. (2009). Movement and the rubber hand illusion. Perception, 38(2), 271–280. https://doi.org/10.1068/p5921
Ehrsson, H. (2012). The concept of body ownership and its relationship to multisensory integration. In B. E. Stein (Ed.), The New Hand Book of Multisensory Processes (pp. 775–792). The MIT Press.
Ehrsson, H. H. (2020). Multisensory processes in body ownership. In K. Sathian & V. S. Ramachandran (Eds.), Multisensory perception: From laboratory to clinic (pp. 179–200). Academic Press.
Ehrsson, H. H., & Chancel, M. (2019). Premotor cortex implements causal inference in multisensory own-body perception. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 116(40), 19771–19773. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1914000116
Ernst, M. O., & Banks, M. S. (2002). Humans integrate visual and haptic information in a statistically optimal fashion. Nature, 415(6870), 429–433. https://doi.org/10.1038/415429a
Faul, F., Erdfelder, E., Buchner, A., & Lang, A.-G. (2009). Statistical power analyses using G*Power 3.1: Tests for correlation and regression analyses. Behavior Research Methods, 41, 1149–1160. https://doi.org/10.3758/BRM.41.4.1149
Fukuda, T. Y., Echeimberg, J. O., Pompeu, J. E., Lucareli, P. R. G., Garbelotti, S., Gimenes, R. O., & Apolinário, A. (2010). Root mean square value of the electromyographic signal in the isometric torque of the quadriceps, hamstrings and brachial biceps muscles in female subjects. Journal of Applied Research, 10(1), 32–39.
Gandevia, S. C. (1998). Neural control in human muscle fatigue: Changes in muscle afferents, moto neurones and moto cortical drive. Acta Physiologica Scandinavica, 162(3), 275–283. https://doi.org/10.1046/j.1365-201X.1998.0299f.x
Gibson, J. J., & Carmichael, L. (1966). The Senses Considered as Perceptual Systems. Houghton Mifflin.
Guterstam, A., Collins, K. L., Cronin, J. A., Zeberg, H., Darvas, F., Weaver, K. E., & Ehrsson, H. H. (2019). Direct electrophysiological correlates of body ownership in human cerebral cortex. Cerebral Cortex, 29(3), 1328–1341. https://doi.org/10.1093/cercor/bhy285
Haar, S., Donchin, O., & Dinstein, I. (2017). Individual movement variability magnitudes are explained by cortical neural variability. Journal of Neuroscience, 37(37), 9076–9085. https://doi.org/10.1523/JNEUROSCI.1650-17.2017
Jebelli, H., & Lee, S. (2019). Feasibility of wearable electromyography (EMG) to assess construction workers’ muscle fatigue. In I. Mutis & T. Hartmann (Eds.), Advances in Informatics and Computing in Civil and Construction Engineering (pp. 181–187). Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-00220-6_22
Jones, D. A. (1996). High-and low-frequency fatigue revisited. Acta Physiologica Scandinavica, 156(3), 265–270. https://doi.org/10.1046/j.1365-201X.1996.192000.x
Kalckert, A., & Ehrsson, H. H. (2012). Moving a rubber hand that feels like your own: A dissociation of ownership and agency. Frontiers in Human Neuroscience, 6, 40. https://doi.org/10.3389/fnhum.2012.00040
Kalckert, A., & Ehrsson, H. H. (2014). The moving rubber hand illusion revisited: Comparing movements and visuotactile stimulation to induce illusory ownership. Consciousness and Cognition, 26, 117–132. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.concog.2014.02.003
Katsis, C. D., Ntouvas, N. E., Bafas, C. G., & Fotiadis, D. I. (2004). Assessment of muscle fatigue during driving using surface EMG. Biomedical Engineering, 2, 1–4. https://doi.org/10.2316/Journal.216.2004.2.417-112
Keeton, R. B., & Binder-Macleod, S. A. (2006). Low-frequency fatigue. Physical Therapy, 86(8), 1146–1150. https://doi.org/10.1093/ptj/86.8.1146
Kuniszyk-Jóźkowiak, W., Jaszczuk, J., & Czaplicki, A. (2018). Changes in electromyographic signals and skin temperature during standardized effort in volleyball players. Acta of Bioengineering and Biomechanics. https://doi.org/10.5277/ABB-01198-2018-02
Lenggenhager, B., Pazzaglia, M., Scivoletto, G., Molinari, M., & Aglioti, S. M. (2012). The sense of the body in individuals with spinal cord injury. PLoS ONE, 7(11), e50757. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0050757
Llorens, R., Borrego, A., Palomo, P., Cebolla, A., Noé, E., Badia, S. B., & Baños, R. (2017). Body schema plasticity after stroke: Subjective and neurophysiological correlates of the rubber hand illusion. Neuropsychologia, 96, 61–69. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2017.01.007
Ma, K., & Hommel, B. (2015). The role of agency for perceived ownership in the virtual hand illusion. Consciousness and Cognition, 36, 277–288. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.concog.2015.07.008
Moseley, G. L., Olthof, N., Venema, A., Don, S., Wijers, M., Gallace, A., & Spence, C. (2008). Psychologically induced cooling of a specific body part caused by the illusory ownership of an artificial counterpart. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 105(35), 13169–13173. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.0803768105
Pyasik, M., Salatino, A., & Pia, L. (2019). Do movements contribute to sense of body ownership? Rubber hand illusion in expert pianists. Psychological Research Psychologische Forschung, 83(1), 185–195. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00426-018-1137-x
Reader, A. T., Trifonova, V. S., & Ehrsson, H. H. (2021). Little evidence for an effect of the rubber hand illusion on basic movement. European Journal of Neuroscience, 54(7), 6463–6486. https://doi.org/10.1111/ejn.15444
Rohde, M., Di Luca, M., & Ernst, M. O. (2011). The rubber hand illusion: Feeling of ownership and proprioceptive drift do not go hand in hand. PLoS ONE, 6(6), e21659. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0021659
Scandola, M., Tidoni, E., Avesani, R., Brunelli, G., Aglioti, S. M., & Moro, V. (2014). Rubber hand illusion induced by touching the face ipsilaterally to a deprived hand: Evidence for plastic “somatotopic” remapping in tetraplegics. Frontiers in Human Neuroscience, 8, 404. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0050757
Shibuya, S., Unenaka, S., & Ohki, Y. (2018). The relationship between the virtual hand illusion and motor performance. Frontiers in Psychology, 9, 2242. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2018.02242
Shibuya, S., Unenaka, S., Shimada, S., & Ohki, Y. (2021). Distinct modulation of mu and beta rhythm desynchronization during observation of embodied fake hand rotation. Neuropsychologia, 159, 107952. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2021.107952
Taylor, J. L., Butler, J. E., Allen, G. M., & Gandevia, S. C. (1996). Changes in motor cortical excitability during human muscle fatigue. The Journal of Physiology, 490(2), 519–528. https://doi.org/10.1113/jphysiol.1996.sp021163
Teaford, M. (2020). Spinocerebellar Ataxia Type 6—A disorder of connectivity? The Journal of Neuroscience, 40(49), 9344–9345. https://doi.org/10.1523/JNEUROSCI.0822-20.2020
Teaford, M., Fitzpatrick, J., & Smart, L. J. (2021a). The impact of experimentally induced limb ischemia on the rubber hand illusion. Perception. https://doi.org/10.1177/0301006620977797
Teaford, M., Giliand, J., Hodkey, O., McVeigh, T., Perry, C., Rains-Bury, L., & Smart, L. J. (2021b). Preliminary evaluation of the moving rubber foot illusion in a sample of female university students. Perception, 50(11), 966–975. https://doi.org/10.1177/03010066211058802
Teaford, M., McMurry, M., Billock, V., Filipkowski, M., & Smart, L. J. (2021c). The somatosensory system in anorexia nervosa: A scoping review. Journal of Experimental Psychopathology, 12(1), 1–19. https://doi.org/10.1177/2043808720987346
Tepe, C., & Erdim, M. (2020, June). Classification of EMG Finger Data Acquired with Myo Armband. In: 2020 International Congress on Human-Computer Interaction, Optimization and Robotic Applications (HORA) (pp. 1–4). IEEE.
Tomaszewski, M. (2021). Myo SDK MATLAB MEX Wrapper (https://github.com/mark-toma/MyoMex), GitHub.
Too, J., Rahim, A., & Mohd, N. (2019). Classification of hand movements based on discrete wavelet transform and enhanced feature extraction. International Journal of Advanced Computer Science and Applications. https://doi.org/10.14569/ijacsa.2019.0100612
Tsakiris, M., Longo, M. R., & Haggard, P. (2010). Having a body versus moving your body: Neural signatures of agency and body-ownership. Neuropsychologia, 48(9), 2740–2749. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2010.05.021
Tsakiris, M., Prabhu, G., & Haggard, P. (2006). Having a body versus moving your body: How agency structures body-ownership. Consciousness and Cognition, 15(2), 423–432. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.concog.2005.09.004
Vafadar, A. K., Côté, J. N., & Archambault, P. S. (2012). The effect of muscle fatigue on position sense in an upper limb multi-joint task. Motor Control, 16(2), 265–283. https://doi.org/10.1123/mcj.16.2.265
Veale, J. F. (2014). Edinburgh handedness inventory–short form: A revised version based on confirmatory factor analysis. Laterality Asymmetries of Body, Brain and Cognition, 19(2), 164–177. https://doi.org/10.1080/1357650X.2013.783045
Wagman, J. B., & Blau, J. J. (Eds.). (2020). Perception as Information Detection: reflections on Gibson’s ecological approach to visual perception. Routledge.
Walsh, L. D., Moseley, G. L., Taylor, J. L., & Gandevia, S. C. (2011). Proprioceptive signals contribute to the sense of body ownership. The Journal of Physiology, 589(12), 3009–3021. https://doi.org/10.1113/jphysiol.2011.204941
Whitlock, J. R. (2017). Posterior parietal cortex. Current Biology, 27(14), R691–R695. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cub.2017.06.007
Yacoubi, B., Casamento-Moran, A., Burciu, R. G., Subramony, S. H., Vaillancourt, D. E., & Christou, E. A. (2020). Temporal invariance in SCA6 is related to smaller cerebellar lobule VI and greater disease severity. Journal of Neuroscience, 40(8), 1722–1731. https://doi.org/10.1523/JNEUROSCI.1532-19.2019
Acknowledgements
We would like to thank all of the students who were willing to participate in an in-person study during a pandemic. Without you, this study would not have been possible.
Funding
The equipment utilized in the present study was paid for by the Dorothy Jean Smith Award (awarded to MT in Fall of 2020).
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Ethics declarations
Conflict of interest
The authors declare no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Ethics approval
The study protocol was approved by the Miami University Institutional Review Board (Protocol # 01806).
Consent to participate
All participants gave written consent in accordance with the Declaration of Helsinki.
Consent for publication
The authors affirm that the individual depicted in Fig. 1, provided informed consent for publication of the images.
Additional information
Publisher's Note
Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.
Supplementary Information
Below is the link to the electronic supplementary material.
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Teaford, M., Berg, W., Billock, V.A. et al. Muscle activity prior to experiencing the rubber hand illusion is associated with alterations in perceived hand location. Psychological Research 87, 519–536 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00426-022-01665-z
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00426-022-01665-z