With a tap on the back, researchers create ghostly sensation
Lab illusion probes supernatural experiences, hallucinations
By Bruce Bower
Using well-timed back taps supplied by an odd contraption, scientists have figured out how to induce the weird sensation that someone is standing nearby when not a soul is there.
This eerie experimental effect represents a way to explore how some people supposedly experience the unseen presence of ghosts and other apparitions, say neuroscientist Olaf Blanke of École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne in Switzerland and his colleagues. The new findings, to be published in the Nov. 17 Current Biology, support the idea that in schizophrenia, a breakdown in monitoring sensations produced by one’s own actions contributes to hallucinations and delusions.