Octopuses respond to the rubber hand illusion much like humans and some mammals, implying a shared sense of body ownership despite radically different brains. This points to a common solution evolution finds for sensorimotor selfhood, hinting that body ownership may be a core component of consciousness. The finding broadens which animals we consider to have sophisticated mental lives.
— If body ownership is widespread, debates over animal cognition, welfare standards, and the design of embodied AI should incorporate it as a foundational feature of mind.
Kristen French
2025.08.26
60% relevant
Both the octopus rubber-hand-illusion work and this phantom-limb study point to a robust, possibly conserved architecture for body ownership; here, Hunter Schone’s team shows the brain’s limb representation remains even without the limb, reinforcing the idea of a core body schema.
Steve Stewart-Williams
2025.08.01
100% relevant
Researchers demonstrated octopuses flinch and 'adopt' a fake arm under synchronized stroking in videos summarizing the study.
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