Normal body octopuses can be led to think that a false arm is your
Octopuses can be deceived and led to think that a fake arm is part of your body. The funniest thing is that we humans, too.
We have a sense of body ownership very similar to that of octopus. It is the conclusion of a study this Monday in Current Biology.
First demonstrated in the late 1990s, the Rubber hand illusion It consists of hiding a person’s true hand and putting a fake hand on a table in front of you, caressing both simultaneously.
Later, other mammals, such as rats, have also been found to be deceived by the same trick.
Now, Sumire Kawashima e Yuzuru Ikeda from the University of Ryukyus in Okinawa, Japan, found that the octopuses are also vulnerable to illusion.
As details in the new study, octopuses Callistoctopus aspilosomatis In captivity they were placed in an experimental tank. A fake octopus arm, made of soft gel linked to an opaque partition, was placed on one arms of the octopus, blocking his view of the true arm.
Then one of the investigators used a plastic caliber compass to caress the fake arm and true arm at the same time.
After about 8 seconds, the investigator pinched his fake arm with a tweezer. All six octopuses who participated in 24 attempts at this test presented defense responses, such as changing color, retracting your arm or running away.
When the test was performed without caresses or non -simultaneous caresses, or when the false arm posture did not coincide with that of the true arm, the effect of illusion disappeared.
“Illusion suggests the ability of octopuses to anticipate and predict, which is advantageous for survival. On the other hand, this capacity emerges as a side effect of a Error or processing conflict in the brain And it’s also a flaw, ”Ikeda told New Scientist.
Kawashima praises that this study adds to the list of abilities that octopuses share with humans: “Our findings suggest that octopus can be a Important model to study the evolution of the sense of property of the body”
