Kinematic predictors for the moving hand illusion

Abstract

The sense of body ownership is a result of convergent input of several sensory modalities. Experimental manipulation of different sensory inputs is possible during bodily illusions. These illusions allow studying multisensory mechanisms of body representation. The aim of this research was to investigate motion characteristics of the virtual hand illusion. A novel kinematic analysis for moving hand illusion was applied. Several motion features (such as jerk, smoothness and velocity) predicted subjective and behavioral measures of the illusion. This result may reflect that subjects with higher motor abilities could have better multisensory body representation mechanisms that are responsible for the ownership illusion.