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September 15, 2025<\/p>\n
2 min read<\/p>\n
Freaky \u2018Rubber Hand\u2019 Illusion Works on Octopuses, Too<\/p>\n
Octopuses\u2019 response to a human illusion suggests a sense of body ownership<\/p>\n
By Gennaro Tomma edited by Sarah Lewin Frasier<\/span><\/p>\n An octopus awaits a species-specific version of the \u201crubber hand\u201d experiment.<\/p>\n In the classic \u201crubber hand\u201d illusion, illusion, a participant is tricked into experiencing a fake arm on the table in front of them as their own: their brain \u201cfeels\u201d the tickle of a feather or other stimuli they see applied to the fake arm. (The real arm is behind a partition.) Until now, only some mammals, such as humans and mice, were known to be susceptible to this illusion. But a recent study in Current Biology shows that octopus brains can be tricked in the same way, adding another wrinkle to what we know about these creatures\u2019 inner lives.<\/p>\n First the scientists placed an octopus in a water tank where it could relax on a soft substrate similar to the seafloor. Then they inserted a partition that covered one of the octopus\u2019s arms and left a fake one visible instead. \u201cIt was important to make the rubber arm look like the octopus\u2019s real arm because in the human experiment, the illusion does not occur if the fake hand is shaped differently from the real human hand,\u201d says study lead author Sumire Kawashima, a biologist at the University of the Ryukyus in Japan.<\/p>\n In the top video the octopus does not react to the fake arm being touched, and in the lower video it does.<\/p>\n If you’re enjoying this article, consider supporting our award-winning journalism by subscribing. By purchasing a subscription you are helping to ensure the future of impactful stories about the discoveries and ideas shaping our world today.<\/p>\n Next the researchers simultaneously stroked the real and the fake arm with tweezers. After about eight seconds, they went on stimulating only the fake arm. All six octopuses that met the researchers\u2019 test conditions reacted to the fake arm\u2019s stimulation with defensive responses such as escape maneuvers or body color changes. But when the experimenters tried different approaches such as stroking only the fake arm or stroking the arms asynchronously, the octopuses \u201cwere not surprised at all,\u201d says study co-author Yuzuru Ikeda, also a biologist at University of the Ryukyus.<\/p>\n The findings suggest octopuses fall for the same illusion as humans\u2014and thus may have a sense of body ownership like we do, the researchers say. But the octopuses\u2019 susceptibility to the illusion is an interesting result in itself because such perception has been thought of as one of humankind\u2019s \u201cvery advanced abilities,\u201d Ikeda says.<\/p>\n \u201cI hadn\u2019t seen anything like this before,\u201d says Kristin Andrews, a philosopher at York University in Toronto, who studies animal minds. She says the study seems to offer evidence that octopuses are \u201cself-conscious\u201d or aware of their bodies, although \u201cwe can\u2019t assume that octopuses have the same intuitive belief in a separation between a core self and the body that humans seem to have. [They] might see the world in a very different way.\u201d<\/p>\n If you enjoyed this article, I\u2019d like to ask for your support. Scientific American<\/span> has served as an advocate for science and industry for 180 years, and right now may be the most critical moment in that two-century history.<\/p>\n I\u2019ve been a Scientific American<\/span> subscriber since I was 12 years old, and it helped shape the way I look at the world. SciAm <\/span>always educates and delights me, and inspires a sense of awe for our vast, beautiful universe. I hope it does that for you, too.<\/p>\n If you subscribe to Scientific American<\/span>, you help ensure that our coverage is centered on meaningful research and discovery; that we have the resources to report on the decisions that threaten labs across the U.S.; and that we support both budding and working scientists at a time when the value of science itself too often goes unrecognized.<\/p>\n In return, you get essential news, captivating podcasts, brilliant infographics, can’t-miss newsletters, must-watch videos, challenging games, and the science world’s best writing and reporting. You can even gift someone a subscription.<\/p>\n There has never been a more important time for us to stand up and show why science matters. I hope you\u2019ll support us in that mission.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" September 15, 2025 2 min read Freaky \u2018Rubber Hand\u2019 Illusion Works on Octopuses, Too Octopuses\u2019 response to a human illusion suggests a sense of body ownership By Gennaro Tomma edited by Sarah Lewin Frasier An octopus awaits a species-specific version of the \u201crubber hand\u201d experiment. In the classic \u201crubber hand\u201d illusion, illusion, a participant is<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":21491,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[58],"tags":[13184,2056,13186,12665,13185,6321],"class_list":{"0":"post-21490","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-science","8":"tag-freaky","9":"tag-hand","10":"tag-illusion","11":"tag-octopuses","12":"tag-rubber","13":"tag-works"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21490","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=21490"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21490\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/21491"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=21490"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=21490"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=21490"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}On supporting science journalism<\/h2>\n
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