It goes without saying that we are capable of noticing changes to our bodies, but it's perhaps less obvious that the way we perceive our bodies can affect them physically. The two-way nature of this link, between physicality and perception, has been dramatically demonstrated by a new study of people with chronic hand pain. Lorimer Moseley at the University of Oxford found that he could control the severity of pain and swelling in an aching hand by making it seem larger or smaller.
Moseley recruited 10 patients with chronic pain in one of their arms and asked them to perform a series of ten hand movements at a set intensity and to a set pace. The volunteers had to watch their arms as they went through the motions. On some trials, they did so unaided, but on others, they viewed their arms through a pair of binoculars that doubled their ...
