PLoS One：人体对温度的感受受视觉影响

日本东京大学的一个研究小组在美国在线科学杂志《PLoS综合》新一期上发表文章说，他们的实验表明，人体对温度的感受可能受视觉信息影响。

东京大学认知科学专业教授横泽一彦的团队以20名大学生为对象进行了实验。他们在桌上竖起一块木制的挡板，让学生把自己的手放到挡板外侧，而在挡板内侧放置一只假手。坐在桌边的学生只能看到面前的假手，而看不见自己的手。

研究人员先以同样的时间间隔给20名学生的手和假手施以同样的刺激，使他们认为假手与自己的手接触到了同样的东西。

接下来，研究人员把室温的塑料块同时放到学生的手和假手的手背上，然后将假手手背上的塑料块换成冰块，让学生看到，结果20人中有15人表示手接触到了冷的物体；再把假手手背上的冰块重新换成塑料块，让学生看到，20人中又有18人回答温度上升了。

横泽教授说，这项实验表明，人体对温度的感觉是以皮肤触觉为基础，但也会受到视觉信息的影响，最终“互补”而形成的。

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0047293
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Does Seeing Ice Really Feel Cold? Visual-Thermal Interaction under an Illusory Body-Ownership

Shoko Kanaya mail, Yuka Matsushima, Kazuhiko Yokosawa

Although visual information seems to affect thermal perception (e.g. red color is associated with heat), previous studies have failed to demonstrate the interaction between visual and thermal senses. However, it has been reported that humans feel an illusory thermal sensation in conjunction with an apparently-thermal visual stimulus placed on a prosthetic hand in the rubber hand illusion (RHI) wherein an individual feels that a prosthetic (rubber) hand belongs to him/her. This study tests the possibility that the ownership of the body surface on which a visual stimulus is placed enhances the likelihood of a visual-thermal interaction. We orthogonally manipulated three variables: induced hand-ownership, visually-presented thermal information, and tactically-presented physical thermal information. Results indicated that the sight of an apparently-thermal object on a rubber hand that is illusorily perceived as one's own hand affects thermal judgments about the object physically touching this hand. This effect was not observed without the RHI. The importance of ownership of a body part that is touched by the visual object on the visual-thermal interaction is discussed.