Is the Rubber Hand Illusion Associated with Somatic Symptom Reporting?

Overview

Journal Biol Futur

Specialty Biology

Date 2023 Jul 13

PMID 37442893

Authors

Aron Horvath

Michael Witthoft

Ferenc Koteles

Affiliations

Soon will be listed here.

Abstract

Current approaches to somatic symptom perception conceptualize somatic symptoms partly as somato-visceral or body illusions evoked by an interaction between bottom-up (sensory) and top-down (expectations, attention) processes. Similar processes of multisensory integration are assumed to contribute to the rubber hand illusion (RHI). Findings concerning the strength and direction of associations between these two phenomena, symptom perception and the RHI, are equivocal. Individuals of a non-clinical sample (N = 63; 56% females; M = 20.4; SD = 1.6) completed the Patient Health Questionnaire Somatic Symptom Scale (PHQ-15) and participated in an experiment that evoked the RHI. In repeated measures analyses of variance with the PHQ-15 score as covariate, no significant interaction effects between the PHQ-15 score and indicators of the RHI, i.e., proprioceptive drift (F(1,61) < 0.001 p = 0.993, partial η < 0.001; BF = 0.307), felt body ownership(F(1,59) = 0.043, p = 0.836, partial η = 0,001; BF = 0.501), and felt body disownership (F(1,59) = 0.148, p = 0.702, partial η = 0.002; BF = 1.972) were found. Overall, frequentist and Bayesian analysis indicated that the support for a possible association between the PHQ-15 and indicators of the RHI remains inconclusive, i.e., neither the null nor the alternative hypotheses were sufficiently supported. At least in this non-clinical sample, the association between somatic symptom distress and the strength of the RHI appears so weak (perhaps non-existing), that both phenomena (somatic symptom distress and the RHI) appear distinct and largely unrelated.

References

Abdulkarim Z, Ehrsson H . No causal link between changes in hand position sense and feeling of limb ownership in the rubber hand illusion. Atten Percept Psychophys. 2015; 78(2):707-20. PMC: 4744264. DOI: 10.3758/s13414-015-1016-0. View

Botvinick M, Cohen J . Rubber hands 'feel' touch that eyes see. Nature. 1998; 391(6669):756. DOI: 10.1038/35784. View

Brown R, Brunt N, Poliakoff E, Lloyd D . Illusory touch and tactile perception in somatoform dissociators. J Psychosom Res. 2010; 69(3):241-8. DOI: 10.1016/j.jpsychores.2009.11.010. View

Brown R, Skehan D, Chapman A, Perry E, McKenzie K, Lloyd D . Physical symptom reporting is associated with a tendency to experience somatosensory distortion. Psychosom Med. 2012; 74(6):648-55. DOI: 10.1097/PSY.0b013e3182595358. View

Demartini B, Ricciardi L, Crucianelli L, Fotopoulou A, Edwards M . Sense of body ownership in patients affected by functional motor symptoms (conversion disorder). Conscious Cogn. 2015; 39:70-6. DOI: 10.1016/j.concog.2015.11.005. View

Fang W, Li J, Qi G, Li S, Sigman M, Wang L . Statistical inference of body representation in the macaque brain. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2019; 116(40):20151-20157. PMC: 6778219. DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1902334116. View

Fuchs X, Riemer M, Diers M, Flor H, Trojan J . Perceptual drifts of real and artificial limbs in the rubber hand illusion. Sci Rep. 2016; 6:24362. PMC: 4840308. DOI: 10.1038/srep24362. View

Hegedus G, Darnai G, Szolcsanyi T, Feldmann A, Janszky J, Kallai J . The rubber hand illusion increases heat pain threshold. Eur J Pain. 2014; 18(8):1173-81. DOI: 10.1002/j.1532-2149.2014.00466.x. View

Horvath A, Ferentzi E, Bogdany T, Szolcsanyi T, Witthoft M, Koteles F . Proprioception but not cardiac interoception is related to the rubber hand illusion. Cortex. 2020; 132:361-373. DOI: 10.1016/j.cortex.2020.08.026. View

10.

Katzer A, Oberfeld D, Hiller W, Gerlach A, Witthoft M . Tactile perceptual processes and their relationship to somatoform disorders. J Abnorm Psychol. 2011; 121(2):530-43. DOI: 10.1037/a0026536. View

11.

Kilteni K, Maselli A, Kording K, Slater M . Over my fake body: body ownership illusions for studying the multisensory basis of own-body perception. Front Hum Neurosci. 2015; 9:141. PMC: 4371812. DOI: 10.3389/fnhum.2015.00141. View

12.

Korber S, Frieser D, Steinbrecher N, Hiller W . Classification characteristics of the Patient Health Questionnaire-15 for screening somatoform disorders in a primary care setting. J Psychosom Res. 2011; 71(3):142-7. DOI: 10.1016/j.jpsychores.2011.01.006. View

13.

Kroenke K . Patients presenting with somatic complaints: epidemiology, psychiatric comorbidity and management. Int J Methods Psychiatr Res. 2003; 12(1):34-43. PMC: 6878426. DOI: 10.1002/mpr.140. View

14.

Kroenke K, Spitzer R, Williams J, Linzer M, Hahn S, deGruy 3rd F . Physical symptoms in primary care. Predictors of psychiatric disorders and functional impairment. Arch Fam Med. 1994; 3(9):774-9. DOI: 10.1001/archfami.3.9.774. View

15.

Kroenke K, Spitzer R, Williams J . The PHQ-15: validity of a new measure for evaluating the severity of somatic symptoms. Psychosom Med. 2002; 64(2):258-66. DOI: 10.1097/00006842-200203000-00008. View

16.

Lloyd D, Mason L, Brown R, Poliakoff E . Development of a paradigm for measuring somatic disturbance in clinical populations with medically unexplained symptoms. J Psychosom Res. 2007; 64(1):21-4. DOI: 10.1016/j.jpsychores.2007.06.004. View

17.

Miles E, Poliakoff E, Brown R . Medically unexplained symptom reports are associated with a decreased response to the rubber hand illusion. J Psychosom Res. 2011; 71(4):240-4. DOI: 10.1016/j.jpsychores.2011.04.002. View

18.

Pasqualotto A, Dumitru M, Myachykov A . Editorial: Multisensory Integration: Brain, Body, and World. Front Psychol. 2016; 6:2046. PMC: 4709421. DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2015.02046. View

19.

Pennebaker J, Lightner J . Competition of internal and external information in an exercise setting. J Pers Soc Psychol. 1980; 39(1):165-74. DOI: 10.1037//0022-3514.39.1.165. View

20.

Pennebaker J, Skelton J . Selective monitoring of physical sensations. J Pers Soc Psychol. 1981; 41(2):213-23. DOI: 10.1037//0022-3514.41.2.213. View