We all love our devices — a properly configured laptop, a familiar game controller, or a mouse that fits just so, are extensions of ourselves.

As it turns out, that may be more than mere metaphor.

A recent piece in Wired studied the way our brains work with computer mice–and what happens when those mice don’t work properly. When the mouse was responsive, our brains treated it as an extension of ourselves; when it malfunctioned, we became consciously aware of it and treated as an external “thing.”