Rubber hand illusion (RHI)

Botvinick & Cohen (1998). The classic manipulation of the experience-of-body-ownership: synchronous stroking of a fake hand (with the real hand hidden) makes the fake hand feel like one’s own. It is the empirical anchor for Seth’s predictive account of the bodily self.

Why it matters in Seth (2013)

• Predictive-coding reframing: multisensory conflict is resolved by minimizing self-related precision-weighted prediction error, updating amodal self-priors to include the fake hand. Mere expectation of correlated input suffices (Ferri et al. 2013) — correlation isn’t necessary, prediction is.
• Interoceptive RHI (Suzuki et al. 2013): augmented-reality virtual hand flashing synchronously with the heartbeat enhances ownership (questionnaire + proprioceptive drift). Extended to the full-body illusion with cardio-visual synchrony (Aspell et al. 2013).
• Individual differences: lower interoceptive-sensitivity → greater RHI susceptibility (Tsakiris et al. 2011).
• Autonomic accompaniments: RHI induction lowers real-hand temperature, raises histamine reactivity, and threat to the rubber hand evokes skin-conductance responses — read via active-inference as descending self-predictions tuning autonomic reflexes.

Measurement caveat

Proprioceptive drift and subjective ownership ratings can dissociate (Rohde et al. 2011), so the two RHI readouts should not be treated as interchangeable indices of a single “ownership” quantity.