Annayla Pena Ocasio
Research Mentor: Greg Gage
Mentor Department: Backyard Brains, Engineering
Author(s): Annayla Pena Ocasio, Greg Gage
Session: Session 5 (2:00 PM – 2:50 PM)
Presentation Type: Poster 52
Abstract
The body schema is the brain’s subconscious mapping of one’s physical body in space; research has indicated that psychological and physiological stimulation can manipulate this connection. Yet, while these findings display a clear correlation, the underlying mechanisms of this connection have yet to be directly explored. This study examines the extent to which body ownership influences physiological functions in the human body, suggesting that the body schema is not merely a map, but regulates the functionality of physical health. To seek a further understanding we replicated the Rubber Hand Illusion (RHI) experiment, manipulating participants’ body ownership through synchronous manual brushing while the real hand remained hidden from view. The results showed that once the brain’s psychological connection to the physical hand disconnects and transfers in an illusion to the rubber hand, the true bodily physical hand will have physiological changes and drop in body temperature during the experiment. From this we collected data samples from three different points of the real hand using temperature sensors and compared it to the temperature of the hand before the experiment. Additionally, we compared it to other subjects and a control temperature on the subject’s other hand to gain a bigger understanding of the true temperature drop. These findings suggested that the subconscious body owner is essential for body regulation, which leads into exploring how the subconscious mind operates and can lead to potentially new testable experiments involving the subconscious relation to the physical body to figure out its full potential.
