A new study explains why we can’t always make out our toes with our eyes closed.
Know what agnosia is? This disorder corresponds to an inability of the brain to recognize the stimuli of the body. It is often found in the context of neurological and psychiatric pathologies.
However, researchers at the University of Oxford (UK) have shown that healthy people can develop a mild type of agnosia. When they close their eyes, they can’t always imagine their toes, when they are stimulated by scientists. Published results in the review Perception.
Mistakes for the middle toes
The experimental process is quite fun. Nineteen healthy young adults, aged 22 to 34, were asked to close their eyes. Meanwhile, their toes were hit randomly. They were to, in the process, name the toe that had just been stimulated.
According to their results, the researchers note that the big and the little toe are more often recognized by the participants, in 94% of cases. On the other hand, people have a harder time locating the other three fingers: at 57% for the second, 60% for the third and 79% for the fourth toe.
Additionally, the team noticed that right-handed people had more difficulty recognizing the toes on the left foot, and vice versa. And, in more than half of the cases, the participants said they had the unpleasant feeling that some of their toes were missing during the experiment.
Perception of “blocks”
Astonishing observations that the team was quick to try to explain. At first, she points out that the toes are generally less stimulated than the fingers of the hands, which explains why they have lost sensitivity.
In addition, the difficulties experienced by some would come from what the brain perceives the toes as blocks not separated by spaces between them. So it is easier to feel the toes at the ends of the feet, but not the middle ones, which are not taken into account separately by the brain.
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