Katharina Buczek
A recent study conducted by researchers at Ruhr University Bochum has shown that our mental processes can influence and alter tactile perception– an issue that the scientific community has been divided on.
This finding came after each participant was put under professional hypnosis, and the scientists discovered that if we genuinely believe that our index finger is five times larger than it truly is, then tactility– or our sense of touch– will improve.
Interestingly, the opposite was found to be true as well. When the participants received a hypnotic suggestion that their index finger was actually five times smaller than it really was, their sense of touch also decreased.
The participant pool included 24 individuals. And prior to undergoing hypnosis, the researchers used the two-point discrimination method to measure each participant’s tactile perception.
The method involved lying the index finger on a device that caused two needles to repeatedly touch the finger. This contact was painless but still perceivable.
“If the needles are far enough apart, we can easily distinguish two points of contact. But if the needles are very close together, we only feel the touch in one place,” explained Hubert Dinse, one of the study’s authors.
So, even though two needles are presented, the sensation can change from feeling two needles to only one when a certain distance between the needles is reached.
And the team wanted to determine whether or not it was possible to alter this “sensation threshold” by signaling a verbally-articulated thought in an individual.
The researchers ultimately selected two different thought cues. The first was, “Imagine your index finger is five times smaller.” The second was, “Imagine your index finger is five times bigger.” Then, to activate these statements, hypnotic suggestion was used.
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