Upper- and lower-limb amputees show reduced levels of eeriness for images of prosthetic hands

Buckingham, G, Parr, J, Wood, G, Day, S, Kenney, LPJ ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2164-3892, Galpin, AJ ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7699-8706, Head, JS ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3483-3903, Chadwell, AEA ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9101-5202, Kyberd, P, Gowen, E and Poliakoff, E 2019, 'Upper- and lower-limb amputees show reduced levels of eeriness for images of prosthetic hands' , Psychonomic Bulletin & Review . (In Press)

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Abstract

The uncanny phenomenon describes the feeling of unease associated with seeing an image which is close to appearing human. Prosthetic hands in particular are well-known to induce this effect. Little is known, however, about this phenomenon from the viewpoint of prosthesis users. We studied perceptions of eeriness and human-likeness for images of different types of mechanical, cosmetic, and anatomical hands in upper-limb prosthesis users (n=9), lower-limb prosthesis users (n=10), prosthetists (n=16), control participants with no prosthetic training (n=20), and control participants who were trained to use a myoelectric prosthetic hand simulator (n=23). Both the upper- and lowerlimb prosthesis user groups showed a reduced uncanny phenomenon (i.e., significantly lower levels of eeriness) for cosmetic prosthetic hands compared to the other groups, with no concomitant reduction in how these stimuli were rated in terms of human-likeness. However, a similar effect was found neither for prosthetists with prolonged visual experience of prosthetic hands, nor for the group with short-term training with the simulator. These findings in the prosthesis users therefore seem likely to be related to limb absence or prolonged experience with prostheses.

Item Type:	Article
Schools:	Schools > School of Health and Society > Centre for Health Sciences Research
Journal or Publication Title:	Psychonomic Bulletin & Review
Publisher:	Springer
ISSN:	1069-9384
Depositing User:	Professor Laurence Kenney
Date Deposited:	16 Apr 2019 09:36
Last Modified:	16 Apr 2019 09:45
URI:	http://usir.salford.ac.uk/id/eprint/51064

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