According to a study carried out by scientists from University College London and the University of Milan-Bicocca in Italy, looking at the part of our body that causes us pain reduces that same sensation. A situation that is perfectly explained when we notice a decrease in pain when looking at our hands, after our skin has come into contact with a hot object.
Which in other words means that the intensity of the pain depends on the size of our hand, in this way the larger we see it, the less the sensation of pain we will experience.
Research results
These are some of the conclusions drawn from research carried out by groups of experts from universities, which have been published.
The study was possible thanks to the collaboration of 18 participants who were placed a heat emitting device in their left hand, which gradually experienced an increase in temperature. In this way, at the moment in which the participants felt some type of discomfort, they pressed a pedal to stop this pain.
Thanks to the mirrors that were present throughout the study, the scientists were able to verify that the participants always looked at their left hand. In this simple way, the researchers who developed the study were able to show that just looking at the hand reduced the sensation of pain.
In the other part of the investigation, the scientists used concave and convex mirrors so that the participants could see their largest hand. The conclusion reached by the group of scientists was that when the hand looked larger, the participants could tolerate higher levels of heat generated by the emitting device before indicating that they felt pain.
