Published online by Cambridge University Press: 23 March 2020
In the rubber hand illusion (RHI) [1], sense of body ownership is changed by synchronous touches to the hidden participant's hand and a visible rubber hand. It was previously shown [2] that medically unexplained symptoms were associated with the weaker RHI (n = 40).
We used data from our previous research [3] and supplementary questionnaires to test the hypothesis that somatoform symptoms would be associated with the decreased response to RHI.
Subjects (n = 78) voluntarily undergo the following procedures: RHI experiment with measurement of proprioceptive drift and self-reports, Screening for Somatoform Disorders (SOMS-2) and Symptom Check List-90-Revised (the “somatization scale”).
Robust regression was used to evaluate predictors influence: Drift/Self-reports∼SOMS-2 + somatization. SOMS-2 was a significant predictor for proprioceptive drift with positive coefficient (P < 0.05, adjusted), both predictors were insignificant for self-reports.
Thus, the results of [2] were not reproduced. We demonstrated on the larger sample, that the higher somatoform symptoms (scores of SOMS-2) predicted the stronger RHI. Since our research and [2] had been conducted on non-clinical groups, it is necessary to conduct the critical experiment on the clinical population.
The reported study was funded by RFBR according to the research project No.16-36-00394.
The authors have not supplied their declaration of competing interest.
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