It is well known that our perception of size and distance is a product of how our brain interprets different visual cues. Some researchers have claimed that our bodies also influence our perception of the world, so that the taller you are, the shorter distances appear to be. However, there has been no way of testing this hypothesis experimentally - until now.
Now, Swedish neuroscientists have created the illusion of body swapping with a very small doll-sized body or a very large, 13-foot tall body.
Their results show for the first time that the size of our bodies has a profound effect on how we perceive the space around us.
"Tiny bodies perceive the world as huge, and vice versa," says study leader Henrik Ehrsson at Karolinska Institutet.
The altered perception of space was assessed by having subjects estimate the size of different blocks and then walk over to the blocks with their eyes shut. The illusion of having a small body caused an overestimation of size and distance, an effect that was reversed for large bodies.
One strategy that the brain uses to judge size is through comparison - if a person stands beside a tree it computes the size of both. However, the sensed own body seems to serve as a fundamental reference that affects this and other visual mechanisms.
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The study also shows that it is perfectly possible to create an illusion of body-swapping with extremely small or large artificial bodies; an effect that Ehrsson believes has considerable potential practical applications.
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The findings are published in the online open access journal PLoS ONE.
Source-ANI