ArticleScientific reports2023
Phantom touch illusion, an unexpected phenomenological effect of tactile gating in the absence of tactile stimulation.
Article in Scientific reports, 2023. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 4 papers.
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Who cites it
4 citing papers in PubMed.
- Self-Driven Hybrid Piezomagnetic-Iontronic Mechanoreceptors for Bimodal SA/RA Perception and Tactile Synthesis.Small (Weinheim an der Bergstrasse, Germany) · 2026Article
- A comprehensive EEG dataset for investigating visual touch perception.Scientific data · 2026Article
- A methodological study of virtual self-touch: effects on perception and motor control strategies.Frontiers in bioengineering and biotechnology · 2026Article
- The Proximity Prediction Hypothesis: How predictive coding of CT-touch explains Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response and its therapeutic applications.Frontiers in behavioral neuroscience · 2025Article
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Authors and funding
3 authors.
Funding
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Abstract
We report the presence of a tingling sensation perceived during self-touch without physical stimulation. We used immersive virtual reality scenarios in which subjects touched their body using a virtual object. This touch resulted in a tingling sensation corresponding to the location touched on the virtual body. We called it "phantom touch illusion" (PTI). Interestingly, the illusion was also reported when subjects touched invisible (inferred) parts of their limb. We reason that this PTI results from tactile gating process during self-touch if there is no tactile input to supress. The reported PTI when touching invisible body parts indicates that tactile gating is not exclusively based on vision, but rather on multi-sensory, top-down input involving body schema. This supplementary finding shows that representations of one's own body are defined top-down, beyond the available sensory information.
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