More on Subjective Perception

Feeling things as it turns out, relates to believing things.  Dinse, Newen, and Tegenthoff learned in a study using hypnosis that “If we sincerely believe that our index finger is five times bigger than it really is, our sense of touch improves. . . . When the participants signaled that they understood the opposite hypnotic suggestion that their index finger was five times smaller than it actually was, their sense of touch deteriorated accordingly. The study shows that our tactile perception is affected and can be altered by our mental processes. . . . ‘Our study provides another building block supporting the idea that such top-down influences of beliefs on perception do indeed exist,’ stresses Hubert Dinse. ‘The beliefs we hold do indeed change how we experience the world.’”

“Our Thoughts Alter Our Tactile Perception.” 2023. Press release, Ruhr Universitat Bochum, https://news.rub.de/english/press-releases/2023-05-11-neuroscience-our-…