My Life As A Table

‘HOW ironic it is that Tony Blair cannot persuade us of the existence of weapons of mass destruction when scientists say we can be persuaded to feel like a table.

Fears were growing over Geri Halliwell’s weight

The Telegraph explains a bizarre experiment in which a person cannot see their own hand but can see a rubber hand placed next to them on a table.

When both hands are simultaneously tapped and stroked in sequence, the subject has the illusion that the sensation comes from the hand that it can see – i.e. the rubber hand.

Fair enough, but scientists in the US have gone further and simply tapped and stroked the table instead of the rubber hand.

”To our astonishment, subjects often reported sensations arising from the table surface, despite the fact that it bears no visual resemblance to a hand,” they said.

The Telegraph says scientists believe the findings will help shed light on body image disorders like anorexia nervosa.

The point presumably being that anorexics tend to feel like flat-pack tables…

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Posted: 4th, June 2003 | In: Broadsheets Comment | TrackBack | Permalink