Abstract
The embodiment of tools and rubber hands is believed to involve the modification of two separate body representations: the body schema and the body image, respectively. It is thought that tools extend the capabilities of the body’s action schema, whereas prosthetics like rubber hands are incorporated into the body image itself. Contrary to this dichotomy, recent research demonstrated that chopsticks can be embodied perceptually during a modified version of the rubber hand illusion (RHI) in which tools are held by the rubber hand and by the participant. In the present research, two experiments examined tool morpho-functional (tool output affordance, e.g., precision grasping) and sensorimotor (tool input, e.g., precision grip) match as a mechanism for this tool-use dependent change to the body image. Proprioceptive drift in the RHI occurred when the tool’s output and the user’s input matched, but not when this match was absent. This suggests that this factor may be necessary for tools to interact with the body image in the RHI.
Highlights
Two bodies of literature have run in parallel for nearly two decades: tool use and body representation
The effects of tools and rubber hands on body representations have been reported in disparate literatures since both fields began to gain traction in the past 20 years
For over 100 years, researchers have recognized a sharp divide between the body schema, a body representation for action, and the body image, a body representation for perception and identification (Head and Holmes, 1911; Anema et al, 2009)
Summary
Two bodies of literature have run in parallel for nearly two decades: tool use and body representation. Both fields employ overlapping terminology and examine the ways in which noncorporeal tools or prosthetics are incorporated into and extend bodily representations. The investigation of human tool use demonstrates that tools are incorporated into at least some form of representation of the user’s body. Researchers who use multisensory bodily illusions like the rubber hand illusion (RHI) (Botvinick and Cohen, 1998) to examine bodily representations have repeatedly shown that the feeling of body-ownership can be extended only to objects that resemble human body parts.
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