Abstract
Basic visual functions have evolved to allow for rapid detection of dynamic stimuli in our surrounding environment. In particular, looming stimuli are of relevance because they are expected to enter the individual’s interpersonal space representing a potential threat. Different studies showed that emotions can modulate the perception of visual looming stimuli and the borders of interpersonal space, defined as the area around the body that individuals maintain between themselves and others during social interactions. Here, we investigated how emotions modulate the perception and the physiological correlates of interpersonal space and whether such indexes change across age and gender. Children and adults were asked to quickly react to emotional looming stimuli while measuring their skin conductance response (SCR). We found that emotional looming stimuli shrink the borders of interpersonal space of males more than females, and that this pattern does not change with age. In addition, adults reacted faster to angry than happy and neutral faces, which is in line with the notion that threatening stimuli capture attention more quickly than other types of emotional stimuli. However, this was not observed in children, suggesting that experience with negative stimuli, rather than the evolutionary meaning they possess, may influence the boundaries of interpersonal space. Overall, our study suggests that interpersonal space is modulated by emotions, but this appears to be modulated by gender and age: while behavioural responses to emotional looming stimuli refine with age, physiological responses are adult-like as early as 5 years of age.
Highlights
The space around our bodies represents an important and vital area
In a study using immersive virtual reality, Ruggiero and colleagues (2017) asked participants to establish a comfort distance (‘interpersonal space’) and a reachability distance (‘peripersonal space’) from avatars expressing either happy, angry or neutral emotions. Both peripersonal and interpersonal spaces were influenced by emotions, with negative emotions ‘expanding’ the space more than the neutral faces, suggesting that space, emotional valence and action, all interact in order to prepare an adequate motor output. These results suggest that the social domain of interpersonal space shares common mechanisms to the sensorimotor domain of peripersonal space
Given the lack of studies in the developmental population, in the current study, we aimed to investigate how emotions modulate the perception and the physiological correlates of interpersonal space across age and gender, by presenting children and adults with emotional looming stimuli and by assessing their skin conductance responses
Summary
The space around our bodies represents an important and vital area. we closely monitor the objects that enter this area, as well as monitor the actions performed by our limbs that interact with objects in the outer world. The concept of “interpersonal space” (Candini et al, 2019; D'Angelo et al, 2019; Iachini et al, 2014; Patané et al, 2017) emphasises the importance of emotions in the construction of this space, and should not confuse with the concept of “peripersonal space”, which is an “action space”, conceptualised as a multisensory interface, which detects and predicts potential interactions between the body and the environment in order to generate suitable motor outcomes (Brozzoli et al, 2013; Iachini et al, 2014; Rizzolatti et al, 1981). Ferri and colleagues (2015) showed that emotion-inducing looming sounds
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