Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society

The Rubber Hand Illusion (RHI) is an illusion of body ownership.This study investigates the RHI in furries: people who manifestinterest in anthropomorphic animals through various combinationsof costuming, roleplay, identification with a fursona, and unusualbodily experiences. Furry culture suggests two ways furries coulddiffer from non-furries in their RHI experience: (1) furries’malleable perception of bodily self and identity may result instronger feelings of illusory experience; alternatively, (2) furries’identification with non-human animals may result in weakerfeelings of self-ownership for a human prosthetic. Results supportthe latter hypothesis; furries felt less subjective embodimentcompared to non-furries. Moreover, proprioceptive drift waspredicted by the extent individual furries valued humanity and theirhuman bodies. The less esteem furries had for humanity and theirhuman form, the less drift toward the human rubber hand wasobserved. These findings suggest how embodiment is related tosubjectivity, identity, and practice.