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

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

Farmer, Harry ORCID: 0000-0002-3684-0605, Tajadura-Jiménez, Ana and Tsakiris, Manos (2012) Beyond the colour of my skin: how skin colour affects the sense of body-ownership. Consciousness and Cognition, 21 (3). pp. 1242-1256. ISSN 1053-8100 (doi:https://doi.org/10.1016/j.concog.2012.04.011)

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Abstract

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.

Item Type: Article
Uncontrolled Keywords: body-ownership, rubber hand illusion, multisensory, social groups, skin colour, body image
Subjects: B Philosophy. Psychology. Religion > BF Psychology
Faculty / School / Research Centre / Research Group: Faculty of Education, Health & Human Sciences
Faculty of Education, Health & Human Sciences > School of Human Sciences (HUM)
Last Modified: 30 Jan 2020 15:39
URI: http://gala.gre.ac.uk/id/eprint/26812

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