In the skin of the invisible man – Quo

By: Pascale Mollard-Chenebonoit / AFP / AFP

Thursday April 23, 2015

  What do you feel when you have the feeling of being invisible? Less stress in front of others, found a group of researchers, according to which that illusion can help people with social anxiety .

  Being invisible is an ancient aspiration. The Greek philosopher Plato tells the story of Gyges, who becomes king thanks to a ring that confers invisibility. The science fiction novel by HG Wells, The Invisible Man attributes such authority to a mad scientist Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Apprentice JK Rowling, has a layer that power.

 In recent years progress has been made in the investigation by metamaterials able to manipulate the waves by “ invisibility cloaks ” consisting of artificial materials that allow deflect the light rays arriving on an object, making it invisible .

 

 While devices that can hide completely a body have not been developed yet, it is not unrealistic to think that someday will be achieved, and preparing better go, “he told AFP Arvid Guterstam, coauthor a study published Thursday in Scientific Reports .

 

 We want to study the psychological consequences of such invisibility for these devices can be used safely, “the researcher at neuroscience of the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm (Sweden).

 

 The study used a total of 125 participants, with 25 volunteers for each experience.

 Each was equipped with a helmet live video and 3D, powered by a pair of cameras placed at eye level. Pointing down, the cameras were rolling empty.

 The researchers then asked to volunteer to get up and look down. Instead of seeing his own body, the person sees an empty space.

  The good and evil

 To increase the illusion, a researcher touches different parts of the participant’s body with a large brush hand held, while the other makes the move in a vacuum. In the space of 30 seconds, most participants had the feeling that his body had become invisible.

 

 To check if it worked illusion, we took a stab at invisible body while we measured the stress generated by the gesture. People transpired over, suggesting that the brain of the person perceived this gesture in a vacuum as a direct threat against his own body, “says Arvid Guterstam.

 

 In one of the experiences, the researchers exposed participants to a stressful social situation in the presence of an audience of strangers.

 Scientists found that the heart rate of the participants and their stress level declared was lower when the person had the feeling of being invisible only when it was known visible by everyone else.

 

 If the brain perceives the body as invisible assumed that the same is also true for other observers, which reduces linked to being the center of attention stress, “says Arvid Guterstam.

 

 

 Social anxiety is suffered to varying degrees throughout life by about ten percent of people, according to the researcher.

 

 Cognitively psychotherapy and behavioral (CBT, for its acronym in English) is the most common non-drug treatment to cure this social phobia. Tends to accustom the patient to increasingly stressful situations.

 Some of these therapies use simulations virtual reality .

 

 We think that give the illusion of being invisible could be used as a first step for these therapies based on virtual reality, “says Arvid Guterstam.” This could help patients whose anxiety comes from negative emotions related to their own body. “

 

 Henrik Ehrsson, Karolinska Institute, recommends the development of new studies to verify that future devices invisibility “do not make us lose our sense of good and evil.”