The UK’s largest science festival, New Scientist Live promises audiences a packed weekend of groundbreaking discoveries, hands-on activities and performances. Featuring over 80 exhibitors and talks from some of the best-loved names in science, visitors can experience everything from artificial intelligence, weird animals and cutting-edge astrophysics to the best things to eat for brain health.
Led by Dr Roger Newport, a world-leading expert in the field of sensory integration and body illusions, Loughborough’s exhibit will invite visitors to explore how mind-bending body illusions can inform our understanding of how we experience our own body.
Throughout the weekend, children and adults of all ages can immerse themselves in the fascinating world of sensory illusions, with hands-on experiences including melting hands, extra fingers and other seemingly impossible sensations.
The exhibit draws on over a decade of lab-based research and public engagement experience. Earlier this year, Dr. Newport – whose cutting-edge work supports global studies to alleviate persistent pain – was awarded a prestigious Leverhulme Trust Research Fellowship to help even more people experience and understand the impact of these illusions.
The way our body feels is shaped by how the brain processes and puts together all the sensory information it receives - from what we see, feel, touch, and hear to how we move.
Understanding how this mental representation is formed has far-reaching implications for improving health, well-being, self-esteem, social interactions, rehabilitation, and the management of clinical disorders and pain.
Experiencing how a person’s body can feel differently to how it looks can enhance empathy and understanding among families, carers and employers, allowing them to better appreciate the challenges of living with a distorted or altered perception of their body that cannot be seen or felt by others.
Through the Leverhulme fellowship, Dr Newport will collaborate with community researchers to take universally accessible sensory illusions from the lab into the home, providing first-person experiences of a body that feels different to reality.
Dr Newport said: “Experiments using body illusions have taught us a great deal about mental body representations. By tweaking the sensory information our brain gets, we can make the body temporarily feel different to how it usually does.
"Using everyday household objects such as pencils, sunglasses, string, and mirrors, we can take these experiences out of the lab and into people’s homes, making the benefits of understanding body perception accessible to everyone.”
Professor Dan Parsons, Pro Vice-Chancellor for Research and Innovation at Loughborough, said: "New Scientist Live is the UK’s largest science festival, renowned for showcasing the latest breakthroughs and innovations, and we’re thrilled to be joining the line-up this year.
"How our body feels to us is a fundamental part of what makes us who we are. Understanding how that works—and how it can go wrong—is crucial for our health and well-being.
"I’d encourage audiences of all ages to come along and experience how these fun illusions can transform our understanding of the body, and the potential they have to make a real difference in people’s lives.”
New Scientist Live takes place at the ExCeL London, Royal Victoria Dock, 1 Western Gateway, London, E16 from Saturday 12 October 2024 to Monday 14 October 2024.
The full programme, along with booking information, is available on New Scientist’s website.