Cynophobic fear adaptively extends peri-personal space.

Marine Taffou,Isabelle Viaud-Delmon

doi:10.3389/fpsyt.2014.00122

Abstract

Peri-personal space (PPS) is defined as the space immediately surrounding our bodies, which is critical in the adaptation of our social behavior. As a space of interaction with the external world, PPS is involved in the control of motor action as well as in the protection of the body. The boundaries of this PPS are known to be flexible but so far, little is known about how PPS boundaries are influenced by unreasonable fear. We hypothesized that unreasonable fear extends the neural representation of the multisensory space immediately surrounding the body in the presence of a feared object, with the aim of expanding the space of protection around the body. To test this hypothesis, we explored the impact of unreasonable fear on the size of PPS in two groups of non-clinical participants: dog-fearful and non-fearful participants. The sensitivity to cynophobia was assessed with a questionnaire. We measured participants’ PPS extent in the presence of threatening (dog growling) and non-threatening (sheep bleating) auditory stimuli. The sound stimuli were processed through binaural rendering so that the virtual sound sources were looming toward participants from their rear hemi-field. We found that, when in the presence of the auditory dog stimulus, the PPS of dog-fearful participants is larger than that of non-fearful participants. Our results demonstrate that PPS size is adaptively modulated by cynophobia and suggest that anxiety tailors PPS boundaries when exposed to fear-relevant features. Anxiety, with the exception of social phobia, has rarely been studied as a disorder of social interaction. These findings could help develop new treatment strategies for anxious disorders by involving the link between space and interpersonal interaction in the approach of the disorder.

Highlights

Peri-personal space (PPS) is defined as the space immediately surrounding our bodies [1], through which interaction with the external world occurs
Approaching unpleasant sounds trigger a intense emotional response suggesting an activation of defensive responses [16]
Previous results demonstrated that at distances wherein individuals non-sensitive to cynophobia still feel comfortable, a virtual visual looming dog triggers high discomfort for individuals sensitive to cynophobia [17]. This variance in distance, together with PPS’s proposed role of implementing a safety margin around the body, leads us to hypothesize that fear-object looming toward the body will expand PPS boundaries

Summary

Introduction

Peri-personal space (PPS) is defined as the space immediately surrounding our bodies [1], through which interaction with the external world occurs. PPS is opposed to the more distant, extrapersonal space. In the field of social psychology, this space near the body is referred to as “personal space” and has been described as an area with invisible boundaries that individuals actively maintain around themselves, into which the intrusion of unwanted stimulation causes discomfort [3, 4]. PPS can be extended through tooluse [6,7,8], by satisfying social interaction with others allowing integrating them to one’s PPS [9] or by depriving individuals of auditory cues from the external world [10]. PPS can be shrunk by increasing the effort needed to perform a hand movement with wrist weights [11] or by listening to positive emotion-inducing music through headphones leading to a better tolerance of others’ proximity [12]

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Results

Conclusion