Università di Parma, Italy.
Neuropsychologia. 2010 May;48(6):1853-6. doi: 10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2010.01.006. Epub 2010 Feb 1.
When we actively explore with our hands (haptics), the brain must combine diverse sensory signals into a unified percept. Presumably, a key role is played by an internal model of the body, but the processes responsible for forming and maintaining such a model are poorly understood. We used a multisensory illusion to alter the internal model of one's hand by using fake hands smaller or larger than the participant's hand. After such brief illusion we observed a change in haptically perceived object size. These results demonstrate that the brain rapidly recalibrates haptic signals using an internal model of the hand and that this model is multisensory rather than merely visual or memory-based.
当我们用手主动探索时（触觉），大脑必须将各种不同的感觉信号组合成一个统一的感知。据推测，身体的内部模型起着关键作用，但对于形成和维持这种模型的过程知之甚少。我们使用一种多感觉错觉，通过使用比参与者的手小或大的假手来改变手的内部模型。在这种短暂的错觉之后，我们观察到手触摸到的物体大小的变化。这些结果表明，大脑使用手的内部模型快速重新校准触觉信号，并且该模型是多感觉的，而不仅仅是基于视觉或记忆。
