There are few things in life as familiar as your own body , but astudypublished in the journalPerceptionshows that our sense of self starts to disappear when we turn a loss our sense of sight . In fact , the scientist report that the great unwashed have a hard time identifying their own toe when their eyes are come together .
The study participant were touch on their finger and toe without their being able to see which digit was being touched , and then call for to distinguish the figure being singled out .
Fingers were a cinch , with tester identify the correct one about 99 percent of the time . Accuracy dropped more or less , to 94 percent , for the big and pinky toe . But it plummet with the three middle toes , to as low as 57 percent . These little piggies gave testers the toughest sentence .
“ The fundamental egress was distinguishing between the second and third toe [ the toes next to the big toe ] , ” said Dr. Nela Cicmil of Oxford ’s Department of Physiology .
While some did better than others , every participant had some degree of trouble in identifying the correct toes . This sort of misidentification is called “ agnosia . ” The National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke describes it as “ an unfitness to recognize and identify object or person . ”
Not only did people divvy up the conflict to right name their digits , they exhibited a exchangeable rule in which the 2nd toe was believe to be the third , and the third toe was believed to be the fourth . The troubles were even worse when examine the nondominant foot . The most surprising discovery : near half of the quizzer cover feeling as if one toe were gone .
The results could be a valuable dick for understanding more about how agnosia or other body misperceptions work . Moreover , the fact that the healthy humans in the study still had trouble with what might have been look at an easy task could also hold answers forfuture encephalon - legal injury testing .
