Mirror-touch synaesthesia: the role of shared ... - UCL Discovery

43
Chapter 2
Figure 2.1 (a) Summary of the task used to confirm potential cases of mirror-touch
synaesthesia in experiment 1. Participants were asked to detect the site of real touch
while observing another person being touched. For mirror-touch synaesthetes
observed touch elicited a tactile sensation which could either be in a congruent or
incongruent location as the site real touch. (b) Example of congruent and incongruent
trials including error types for a specular mirror-touch synaesthete. On a congruent
trial, real touch was applied to the same side of the face as synaesthetic experience.
On an incongruent trial real touch was applied to the side of the face which was
opposite to synaesthetic experience. Participants were asked to report the location of
real touch and to ignore synaesthetic touch. ‘Mirror-touch’ errors could be produced
on incongruent trials if the subject was to report real touch to both cheeks (despite real
touch being applied to one cheek only) or if the subject was to report synaesthetic
rather than real touch. All other error types were classified as ‘Other’ error types.