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ERIC Number: EJ792595
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2008-Jun
Pages: 21
Abstractor: Author
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-0010-0277
EISSN: N/A
What Is Embodiment? A Psychometric Approach
Longo, Matthew R.; Schuur, Friederike; Kammers, Marjolein P. M.; Tsakiris, Manos; Haggard, Patrick
Cognition, v107 n3 p978-998 Jun 2008
What is it like to have a body? The present study takes a psychometric approach to this question. We collected structured introspective reports of the rubber hand illusion, to systematically investigate the structure of bodily self-consciousness. Participants observed a rubber hand that was stroked either synchronously or asynchronously with their own hand and then made proprioceptive judgments of the location of their own hand and used Likert scales to rate their agreement or disagreement with 27 statements relating to their subjective experience of the illusion. Principal components analysis of this data revealed four major components of the experience across conditions, which we interpret as: "embodiment of rubber hand," "loss of own hand," "movement," and "affect." In the asynchronous condition, an additional fifth component, "deafference," was found. Secondary analysis of the "embodiment of rubber hand" component revealed three subcomponents in both conditions: "ownership," "location," and "agency." The ownership and location components were independent significant predictors of proprioceptive biases induced by the illusion. These results suggest that psychometric tools may provide a rich method for studying the structure of conscious experience, and point the way towards an empirically rigorous phenomenology.
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Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Research
Education Level: N/A
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A