Pinocchio illusion

   Also referred to as phantom nose illusion. The eponym Pinocchio illusion refers to Pinocchio, the protagonist of the childrens' book The Adventures of Pinocchio by the Italian author Carlo Lorenzini, better known as Carlo Collodi (18261890). It constitutes a *motor illusion characterized by an illusory elongation of the nose. The Pinocchio illusion can be induced with a variant of the procedure that is used to produce the * illusory arm extension. The latter illusion can be produced by means of vibratory stimulation of the biceps tendon of a bent and immobilized arm in a blindfolded test person. This typically results in an illusory feeling of movement around the elbow, followed by a * kinaesthetic illusion of extension of the lower arm. To create the Pinoc-chio illusion, the same procedure is followed, with the exception that the test person uses the fingertips of the bent and immobilized arm to touch the tip of the nose. Because the fingertips provide tactile information on the location of the nose, the procedure entails a *kinaesthetic illusion of the tip of the nose moving away from the face. The mediation of the Pinocchio illusion is attributed to the interplay between basic sen-sorimotor impulses, higher cognitive processes, and central sensory processes in parietal areas involved with bodily representations and the representation of movement. The Pinocchio illusion may also be classified as a vibration-induced *phantom illusion or as a *body schema illusion.

   References

   Burrack, A., Brugger, P. (2005). Individual differences in susceptibility to experimentally induced phantom sensations. Body Image,2, 307-313.

   Collodi, C. (1996). The adventures ofPinocchio. Translated by Lucas, A.L. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

   Lackner, J.R. (1988). Some proprioceptive influences on the perceptual representation ofbody shape and orientation. Brain, 111, 281-297.