No... I did not get to play with bunnies today... I actually greatly dislike rabbits. They're mean! But I did learn about an interesting phenomenon: the Cutaneous Rabbit Effect or Cutaneous Saltation.
The Cutaneous Rabbit Effect was discover by Frank Geldard and Carl Sherrick in the early 1970s. The Cutaneous Rabbit Effect, or Illusion, is a tactile trick created by tapping two separate regions of the skin. Usually performed on the forearm, a rapid series of taps are released first near the wrist and then near the elbow. This creates the perception of sequential taps “hopping” up from the wrist to the elbow (even though no taps were applied between the wrist and the elbow). What is interesting about this experiment is that the brain areas that are activated by real taps to the skin are activated for these illusory taps, a phenomenon yet to be explained.
The Cutaneous Rabbit Effect was discover by Frank Geldard and Carl Sherrick in the early 1970s. The Cutaneous Rabbit Effect, or Illusion, is a tactile trick created by tapping two separate regions of the skin. Usually performed on the forearm, a rapid series of taps are released first near the wrist and then near the elbow. This creates the perception of sequential taps “hopping” up from the wrist to the elbow (even though no taps were applied between the wrist and the elbow). What is interesting about this experiment is that the brain areas that are activated by real taps to the skin are activated for these illusory taps, a phenomenon yet to be explained.
Dr. Tillery and his associates are trying to incorporate this phenomenon to induce brain activation across fingers which are not physically stimulated. Instead of using physical stimulation like most tests on the CRE, SMoRG used electrotactile stimuli across four stimulation sites (one before and two stimuli after the illusory stimulus). Additionally, the experiment had the subjects focus on the site that they thought was most likely going to be illusory.
What is most interesting about this experiment is that the Cutaneous Rabbit Effect can be generated across fingertips. This test displays the first evidence that the CRE can still come into effect when the stimuli occur over a path in which the skin is not directly linked. Pretty cool, isn't it?
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