Disgust and the rubber hand illusion: A registered replication report of Jalal, Krishnakumar, and Ramachandran (2015) (Registered Report, Stage 1)

Heightened experience of disgust is a feature of obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), particularly in contamination-related OCD (C-OCD). Previous studies of the rubber hand illusion (RHI) reported that the sense of body ownership is related to the interaction between vision, touch, and proprioception. A recent study demonstrated a link between the RHI and disgust, reporting an interaction between these three perceptual modalities and disgust (Jalal, Krishnakumar, Ramachandran, 2015). However, there have been no direct replications of this initial study.

We proposed a direct replication of Jalal et al.’s (2015) study. Based on a power analysis, we will examine a minimum of 119 participants to determine whether placing contamination-related stimuli on a rubber hand causes OCD-like disgust among healthy participants while experiencing the RHI. In addition, we will test the cross-cultural validity of the previous findings, testing whether Japanese participants experience more intense disgust when a rubber hand and a participant’s hidden hand were stroked synchronously, compared with asynchronous stroking. This replication will provide insight into potential applications of this study protocol in the treatment of OCD.