• Science Tricks the Brain into Experiencing Having Three Arms
    20 replies, posted
[QUOTE]If you’ve ever wondered what it might be like to have an extra arm, a team of Swedish researchers would love to show you. Scientists at the medical university Karolinska Institutet were wondering the same thing, so they set up an experiment to find out. It turns out it’s possible to experience having three arms at the same time. How the mind perceives the body has long been a vexing question for scientists both psychological and physiological, and the commonly accepted line of thinking said that the brain more or less innately understands the blueprint of the body. As such, our brain shouldn’t be able to experience having more limbs than are naturally there. But in a series of simple--if somewhat crude--experiments, the Karolinska team was able to trick the brain into accepting a third arm as the body’s own. The team took 154 healthy individuals and placed their arms on the table next to a third, realistic-looking prosthetic right arm. Creating the third-arm experience was then as simple as creating identical stimuli for both the subject’s right arm and the prosthetic arm. That is, they touched both arms in corresponding places with two small brushes at the same time. Upon processing this visually, a conflict arises in the brain that it resolves in an unexpected way: it accepts both right arms as part of its experience of the body. How can the researchers be sure? They did what any reasonable scientist would do: they threatened their subjects with kitchen knives. The researchers measured the degree of sweatiness of the subjects’ palms after threatening their hands--real hand for some subjects, prosthetic hand for others--to see if the brain showed different defensive reactions. They found that the physiological manifestation (the sweating) of the psychological response (“sh*t, this scientist is about to stab me in the hand”) was largely the same whether researchers threatened the real hand or the prosthetic one--the brain, it seems, wasn’t making a distinction between the two when it came to risking bodily harm. That’s exciting news for prosthetics researchers like the team working on the DARPA arm, as it sheds some light on how our brains perceive our limbs and therefore how we might at some point use the brain to control mechanical prosthesis. Points to Karolinska for getting savage in the name of science. [img]http://www.popsci.com/files/imagecache/article_image_large/articles/Screen%20shot%202011-02-23%20at%203.15.07%20PM.png[/img][/QUOTE] Source: [url]http://www.popsci.com/science/article/2011-02/science-tricks-brain-experiencing-having-three-arms[/url]
Interesting. I always thought it was weird that I had three legs but not three arms. Now I can know how it feels.
Now we can jack off and surf the internet more efficiently. :smile:
This must have been done before. This whole kind of test setup has been pretty wildly used and I can't imagine why this particular type of test would have been missed. Maybe this is the first study of it.
I KNEW IT. Our brain is modular, which means it supports mods and attachments by default.
now do this w/ 2 dicks except the dicks are real and on you
Read the actual story, this is bullshit, it's not experiencing three arms. This test is really damn old, all you're doing is tricking the person to believe that a rubber hand is their hand. Hooray for not reading the actual story. Science Journalism really needs to have better titles. EDIT: I'm semi wrong, but the title was way misleading. The test is more like your body accepts the the fake arm as your right arm along with your right arm, but not as another arm.
Eh, alcohol managed this long before science. When I was drunk once (really badly drunk) one of my friends came up behind me, stuck his arm between my arm and body and went, "bro, look, you have a third arm!" Apparently drunk people are quite susceptible to believing silly things...
Why have I only just heard of the DARPA Arm? I want one. Or two. Or six. See, this is why I believe in Transhumanism. Our bodies are just pieces of squishy science. The more control we have over science, the more control we have over our bodies.
So Rolf Harris can finally do Jake the peg without the peg leg?
I already have 3 arms :smug:
the trick isnt that you have 3 arms, its that you think both are the same. stupid title.
I wondered if it every crossed their minds if they could think they had two penises..
I remember hearing about this before a while back. Sounds pretty cool. Not sure what it means in ways of science or advancement though.
[QUOTE=CabooseRvB;28271923]I wondered if it every crossed their minds if they could think they had two penises..[/QUOTE] Jerk off a fake dick and see if the real one bursts? I see no fun in it.
[QUOTE=Emperor Scorpious II;28272199]Jerk off a fake dick and see if the real one bursts? I see no fun in it.[/QUOTE] But then you can have liek, DP sex with a chick that also thinks she has a double vagina and it's double-fun!
[QUOTE=CabooseRvB;28272212]But then you can have liek, DP sex with a chick that also thinks she has a double vagina and it's double-fun![/QUOTE] Oh shit you're right :lsd:
[QUOTE=johan_sm;28271113]I KNEW IT. Our brain is modular, which means it supports mods and attachments by default.[/QUOTE] Cheap plug and play USB arms from china that die after 2 months
Does this mean I can browse the web normally and eat/wank at the same time unhindered? Fantastic!
[QUOTE=johan_sm;28271113]I KNEW IT. Our brain is modular, which means it supports mods and attachments by default.[/QUOTE] Im gonna add CS:S weapons and something called Notavirus.lua.exe into my brain now!
[QUOTE=Emperor Scorpious II;28270844]Source: [url]http://www.popsci.com/science/article/2011-02/science-tricks-brain-experiencing-having-three-arms[/url][/QUOTE] I saw the video on Youtube 2 years ago. :geno:
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