Experimental setup.

To examine the role of tactile expectations on the magnetic touch illusion and on limb ownership in general, four experimental conditions were included: Visual stimulation in the form of a brush slowly approaching the rubber hand in a continuous ‘tapping’ motion, while synchronous taps were delivered to the hidden real hand using an identical brush (visuo-tactile). This condition should elicit the magnetic touch illusion [12]. The visual only—brush approaching condition featured identical visual stimulation as in visuo-tactile, but no tactile stimulation of the real hand. The visual only—hand approaching condition consisted of the experimenter’s hand slowly approach the rubber hand, as in [4]. Theoretically, both of these conditions should induce tactile expectations, because the trajectory of the visual stimulus is along a path on “collision course” with both the real and rubber hands [13]. In the visual only—hand static condition, the experimenter’s hand was held in a fixed position 30cm above the rubber hand. This condition should not be associated with tactile expectations and served as a baseline condition to control for the effect of simply looking at a rubber hand. *EDA = electrodermal activity. Illustration credit: Mattias Karlén.