Normal or Tingly? A story about Hands & Feet
Spontaneous sensations (SPS) are sensations which are felt in the body in the absence of external stimulation, often at periods of rest and relaxation (Naveteur, Honoré, & Michael, 2005). The literature on SPS has used explicit measures such as questionnaires to explore SPS, while no studies to date have examined SPS on an implicit level. This study was conducted to collect representative stimuli for an Implicit Association Test (IAT) for SPS in hands and feet. Hence, the study aimed to answer the question of how participants perceive their hands and feet, in the presence or absence of SPS. A short online survey was completed by eighteen participants to identify the most frequent words used to describe our limbs in the presence or absence of SPS. Results indicated that individuals who perceive and those who do not perceive SPS in their limbs, describe their limbs as normal while the most frequent SPS were itching and tingling. Thus, the words we use to describe how our limbs feel are similar as we use the same words to describe how we feel our hands and feet. However, the way we experience SPS (e.g. frequency) varies as hands experienced more SPS than feet. Finally, those words will be used in an IAT for SPS as the most representative stimuli for two categories: absence of SPS and presence of SPS.