The Effect Of Social Touch On The Rubber Hand Illusion

Social touch includes affective touch and interpersonal touch,with the functions of communication,comfort,stress relief and so on.Rubber hand illusion is an illusion of interaction between vision,touch and proprioception.When someone brushes the fake hand and the hidden real hand simultaneously with two brushes,the subjects may perceive the fake hand as their real hand.A small number of studies have shown that tactile properties affect pleasure and thus rubber hand illusion.Therefore,this paper explores the effects of bottom-up affective touch and top-down interpersonal touch on rubber hand illusion.Two experiments were conducted to investigate the effects of affective touch and interpersonal touch on rubber hand illusion.Experiment 1 used a single factor in the design of the subjects,the independent variable is the speed of the brush,divided into 0.6 cm/s?3cm/s?15cm/s three levels.In 63 subjects,55 valid data were obtained after removing 8 sensitive data,and the effect of affective touch on rubber hand illusion was discussed.As a result,it was found that the rubber hand illusion was the strongest when the brush moved at moderate speed(3cm/s).experiment ii added asynchrony as a control group,using 3(interpersonal relationship type: strangers,friends,lovers)?2(tactile stimulation mode: synchronous tactile stimulation,asynchronous tactile stimulation)two–factor mixed experimental design,interpersonal relationship type for inter–group variables,tactile stimulation mode for intra–group variables.67 valid data were collected to explore the effect of interpersonal touch on rubber hand illusion.The results show that:(1)Affective touch affects the rubber hand illusion,and the rubber hand illusion is strongest when the brush moves at moderate speed(3 cm/s).(2)The temperature of the real hand does not decrease when it has a feeling of possession of the rubber hand.(3)The interpersonal touch affects the rubber hand illusion,and the relationship between lovers leads to the rubber hand illusion.(4)The decrease of heart rate was greatest when the relationship type was lovers.(5)The effect of human touch on rubber hand illusion is manifested in the illusion scale rather than the proprioceptive drift distance.Conclusion: The social touch has a significant effect on the rubber hand illusion.The strength of the rubber hand illusion is affected by both the down-top affective touch and the top-down interpersonal touch.