What Exactly Does the Rubber Hand Illusion Tell Us? The "Disembodied" and the "Embodied" Model

The rubber hand illusion (RHI), that is, the experience of an artificial hand as being a real body part, has been studied by various scholars. This illusion is often used to demonstrate many theoretical constructs, such as the "plasticity" of our body representation. However, upon closer examination, it is surprising how the RHI has been interpreted from at least two different perspectives. For some authors who follow a kind of "mind-body" dualism and a "disembodied" view, it is evidence that we are never in direct contact with our bodies. The body we experience is only a product of the brain's activity and thus somehow "virtual" (disembodied model). On the other hand, the RHI has been used to support "embodied" approaches that run counter to the assumed binaries of Cartesian dualistic epistemology. According to this view, the RHI causes us to reconsider the supposed boundaries between mind, body, and environment, thereby demonstrating a kind of mind-body holism (embodied model). This article explores how these two interpretations coexist in the literature, and how they relate to the neurocognitive mechanisms underlying the illusion. I argue that these two different interpretations reflect the thin boundary between the notion of embodiment and that of disembodiment.