Comfortable Distance Research Articles

Syncing online: A methodological investigation into movement synchrony, proxemics, and self-other blurring in virtual spaces.

A growing body of literature has found that synchronising movements with a group subsequently increases self-other blurring and social closeness with synchronised partners. However, movement synchrony has not been studied in online settings. Our study has a primarily methodological focus to investigate whether synchronous movement leads to changes in self-other blurring and proxemics in an online, desktop-mediated environment. We conducted two experiments to manipulate synchrony with a group of virtual agents and investigate its impact on self-other blurring and comfort distance judgments. In Experiment 1, we compared synchronous movement to a no-movement condition; in Experiment 2, we introduced an unpredictable movement condition. In both experiments, we found that our manipulation of synchronous movement between participants and a virtual group of agents led to an increase in explicit self-other blurring compared to the no and unpredictable movement conditions; however, we did not find reliable effects on comfort distance judgments.

A revised online tool for room acoustic prediction of open-plan offices

Room acoustic conditions in open-plan offices are usually measured using ISO 3382-3 standard. The essential single-number quantities obtained from the measurement are comfort distance and distraction distance. Their values can also be predicted using a regression model of Keränen & Hongisto (2013). The prediction accuracy of the model has been proven to be high. The input variables for the model are simple to obtain: room dimensions, screen height, ceiling absorption, vertical absorption, speech level, and background noise level. The prediction model was published online in 2008 but withdrawn in 2013. Since then, we have been repeatedly asked to return the online tool. Since the standard was updated in 2022, we developed a revised online tool that predicts the single-number values of ISO 3382-3 standard. The purpose of this study is to present the online tool and validate its reliability by comparing online tool results to previously published results. The comparison shows that the online tool results agree with the above-mentioned studies. Therefore, the online tool can be safely used. It is a valuable aid in workplace design, demonstrations, research, and education.

Comfort distance between patients and pharmacists during medication instruction: A prospective observational study at a cancer chemotherapy center.

The distance from the patient is a crucial factor in the communication with patients. The distance between patients and pharmacists varies depending on several factors. In this study, we aimed to investigate the relationship between comfort distance and patients' physical condition and mood by measuring this distance at a chemotherapy center. A total of 114 patients were surveyed regarding their physical condition and mood. The distance at which the patients were best able to talk to the pharmacists was measured. For comfort distance measurement, the pharmacists were instructed to approach or move away from the patients. The correlation between physical condition, mood, and comfort distance was examined in both male and female patients, and no significant correlation was found; however, there was a strong correlation between physical condition and mood in female patients. We looked at correlations by further dividing patients into those over and under 65 years of age and found a slight correlation with comfort distance in women under 65. They tended to shorten the distance when they felt well and lengthen the distance when they felt not well. No correlation was found between physical condition or mood and comfort distance in male or female. A slight correlation was observed when age was included; however, the results were not satisfactory. By directly measuring the distance in actual patients, we obtained an actual measurement of the comfort distance that synthesized the patient's condition and various backgrounds during chemotherapy, providing a foothold for future studies.

How different face mask types affect interpersonal distance perception and threat feeling in social interaction.

Due to the easing of the pandemic, public policies no longer mandated people to wear masks. People can choose to no wear or wear different types of masks based on personal preferences and safety perceptions during daily interaction. Available information about the influence of face mask type on interpersonal distance (IPD) by different aging populations is still lacking. Thus, this study aimed to investigate the face mask type (no wear, cloth, medical and N95 mask) and age group effect of avatars (children, adults and older adults) on IPD perception, threat feeling and physiological skin conductance response under active and passive approaching. One hundred participants with a range from 20 to 35years old were recruited for this study. Twelve avatars (three age groups*four face mask conditions) were created and applied in a virtual reality environment. The results showed that age group, mask type and approach mode had significant effects on IPD and subjective threat feeling. A non-significant effect was found on skin conductance responses. Participants maintained a significantly longer IPD when facing the older adults, followed by adults and then children. In the passive approach condition, people tended to maintain a significantly greater comfort distance than during the active approach. For the mask type effect, people kept a significantly largest and shortest IPD when facing an avatar with no mask or the N95 mask, respectively. A non-significant IPD difference was found between the N95 and medical mask. Additionally, based on the subjective threat feeling, facing an avatar wearing a medical mask generated the lowest threat feeling compared to the others. The findings of this study indicated that wearing medical masks provided a benefit in bringing people closer for interaction during specific situations. Understanding that mask-wearing, especially medical one, brought to shortest IPD when compared to the unmasked condition can be utilized to enhance safety measures in crowded public spaces and health-care settings. This information could guide the development of physical distancing recommendations, taking into account both the type of mask and the age groups involved, to ensure the maintenance of appropriate distances.

Effect of different postures and loads on joint motion and muscle activity in older adults during overhead retrieval.

Introduction: Pain is a common health problem among older adults worldwide. Older adults tend to suffer from arm, lumbar, and back pain when using hanging cabinets. Methods: This study used surface electromyography to record muscle activity and a motion capture system to record joint motion to research effects of different loads and retrieval postures on muscle activity and joint range of motion when older adults retrieve objects from a high place, to provide optimised feedback for the design of hanging cabinet furniture. Results: We found that: 1) The activity of BB (Biceps brachii) on the side of the body interacting with the cabinet door was greater than that of UT (Upper trapezius) and BR (Brachial radius) when retrieving objects from a high place, the activity of UT on the side of the body interacting with a heavy object was greater than that of BB and BR. 2) The activity of UT decreases when the shoulder joint angle is greater than 90°, but the activity of BB increases as the angle increases. In contrast, increasing the object's mass causes the maximum load on the shoulder joint. 3) Among the different postures for overhead retrieval, alternating between the right and left hand is preferable for the overhead retrieval task. 4) Age had the most significant effect on overhead retrieval, followed by height (of person), and load changes were significantly different only at the experiment's left elbow joint and the L.BR. 5) Older adults took longer and exerted more effort to complete the task than younger adults, and static exercise in older adults may be more demanding on muscle activity in old age than powered exercise. Conclusion: These results help to optimise the design of hanging cabinet furniture. Regarding the height of hanging cabinets, 180 cm or less is required for regular retrieval movements if the human height is less than 150 cm. Concerning the depth of the hanging cabinets, different heights chose different comfort distances, which translated into the depth of the hanging cabinets; the greater the height, the greater the depth of the hanging cabinets to use.

Emotion-gaze interaction affects time-to-collision estimates, but not preferred interpersonal distance towards looming faces.

Estimating the time until impending collision (time-to-collision, TTC) of approaching or looming individuals and maintaining a comfortable distance from others (interpersonal distance, IPD) are commonly required in daily life and contribute to survival and social goals. Despite accumulating evidence that facial expressions and gaze direction interactively influence face processing, it remains unclear how these facial features affect the spatiotemporal processing of looming faces. We examined whether facial expressions (fearful vs. neutral) and gaze direction (direct vs. averted) interact on the judgments of TTC and IPD for looming faces, based on the shared signal hypothesis that fear signals the existence of threats in the environment when coupled with averted gaze. Experiment 1 demonstrated that TTC estimates were reduced for fearful faces compared to neutral ones only when the concomitant gaze was averted. In Experiment 2, the emotion-gaze interaction was not observed in the IPD regulation, which is arguably sensitive to affective responses to faces. The results suggest that fearful-averted faces modulate the cognitive extrapolation process of looming motion by communicating environmental threats rather than by altering subjective fear or perceived emotional intensity of faces. The TTC-specific effect may reflect an enhanced defensive response to unseen threats implied by looming fearful-averted faces. Our findings provide insight into how the visual system processes facial features to ensure bodily safety and comfortable interpersonal communication in dynamic environments.

Social cognition in two brothers with Becker muscular dystrophy: an exploratory study revealing divergent behavioral phenotypes.

Only few studies investigated social cognition in Becker muscular dystrophy (BMD). However, brain dystrophin deficiency could be a neural substrate for cognitive, emotional, and neuropsychological features in BMD. We compared interoceptive accuracy and interpersonal comfort distance in two brothers with BMD presenting with the same genetic deletion and a healthy control. When possible, we collected neuropsychological and psychopathological assessments. Our BMD patients were significantly different in interoceptive accuracy, with patient 1 being extremely accurate and patient 2 being significantly less accurate than his brother but more accurate than the control. Interestingly, they presented opposite patterns of interpersonal distance. Patient 1 was comfortable with very short interpersonal distance (≤50 cm from the confederate/object) vs the control and patient 2. By contrast, patient 2 preferred larger distance vs the control and patient 1. Patient 1 also presented difficulties in social and emotional skills on the psychopathological assessment. We are aware this is a small sample; nonetheless, this is also the first description of such aspects in BMD and the first report ever of such divergent behavioral pattern. As impaired social cognition affects the quality of life and social relationship, further studies are needed for a closer understanding of involved mechanisms.

«The students like me less in digital lectures»

The COVID-19 pandemic actualized teaching in digital learning environments and brought a steep learning curve for teachers in higher education. Several studies focusing on students’ experiences of this period have gradually emerged, but there has been less on how teachers experience digital learning environments. Hence, the purpose of this empirical study was to gain knowledge about how teachers experienced online teaching of large groups during the pandemic. Two group interviews were conducted with experienced teachers. The main finding was that teaching in digital environments leads to a type of digital apathy. The teachers experienced black screens and a lack of response from students, having a negative effect on them. They become tired, demotivated, and drained of energy. They experienced losing their qualities as lecturers, becoming boring, and being less free in what they could say. Breakout groups were easy to manage, but many students would leave when these were introduced. Teaching in digital learning environments seemed to lead to a comfortable distance, which posed a risk for both students and teachers to become resigned. Therefore, this teaching format may be more demanding than teaching in physical environments. The interviews were conducted at a time when teaching in digital learning environments was novel, and the informants’ expectations may have been characterized by traditional teaching. Their experiences may be different in the long run.

The role of prefrontal cortex and temporoparietal junction in interpersonal comfort and emotional approach

Our perception of physical distance to individuals and stimuli is influenced by our mental distance and relatedness. The present study aimed to investigate the role of the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (dlPFC), ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC), and right temporoparietal junction (rTPJ) in interpersonal comfortable distance and approach behaviors towards emotional stimuli. Twenty healthy volunteers received brain stimulation in four separate sessions with a one-week interval, including anodal left dlPFC, anodal right vmPFC, anodal rTPJ, and sham condition, with an extracranial return electrode. Our results revealed an increase in interpersonal distance during anodal rTPJ stimulation and a decrease in distance to positive pictures during anodal vmPFC stimulation. These findings suggest that the rTPJ plays a role in the perceptual component of self-other distancing, while the vmPFC is involved in approaching positive emotions.

Myopia: An alarming situation in near future

Madam, I am writing to draw attention to an issue that I believe is of great concern for our society: the alarming increase in cases of myopia due to excessive near work. Myopia, or nearsightedness, when the eye has difficulty focusing on distant objects. The prevalence of myopia has been increasing rapidly worldwide, particularly in Asia, where it is estimated that up to 80% of young adults are affected. In the United States, the prevalence of myopia has doubled in the past 30 years.[1] One major factor contributing to this increase is the growing amount of time people spend near work, such as reading, using computers, and playing video games. This kind of work requires the eyes to focus on close objects for extended periods, which can cause the eye to elongate and result in myopia. The consequences of myopia are not only visual but also have significant impacts on quality of life. Myopia increases the risk of eye diseases such as glaucoma, cataracts, and retinal detachment, which can lead to blindness. It can also have a negative impact on academic and career opportunities, as well as physical and social activities. [2] Get regular eye exams: Regular eye exams are crucial for detecting myopia early and monitoring its progression. It is recommended that infants have their first eye exam at six months, and then again at the ages of three and five, and every two years after that. Adults should have an eye exam at least once every two years, or more frequently if advised by their eye doctor. Practice good visual habits: Good visual habits can help prevent myopia from worsening. This includes taking frequent breaks when reading or using electronic devices, maintaining a comfortable distance from the screen, and practicing good posture. You can also try doing eye exercises to strengthen your eye muscles. Spend time outdoors: Studies have shown that spending time outdoors, especially in natural light, can help prevent the onset and progression of myopia in children. Aim for at least 2 hours of outdoor time per day. A study by David A Wilson et al. showed that by 2050 there will be 1 billion people with myopia.[3] Nowadays, our young generation is executively using smartphones and digital screens. All ophthalmologist and optometrist are advised to know all the clints regarding close work to rest in between your work. ---Continue

Native Colonials: Violet Mace’s Australian Aboriginal-Inspired Pottery Designs

In the first half of the twentieth century, many Australian artists, such as the Tasmanian ceramicist Violet Mace (1883–1968), sought to find a distinctly Australian visual expression. Although Modernist aesthetics challenged Mace and her contemporaries to explore abstraction, in order to convey Australia’s specificity she turned to Australian history. Initially, her imagery touched on frontier conflict and the motifs of nineteenth-century Aboriginal artists such as Tommy McCrae. After tracing the sources of Mace’s imagery, this article asks to what extent her representations de-historicised the frontier past and enabled contemporary viewers a comfortable distance from what many Australians now see as a story of violent conquest. Perhaps Mace’s imagery can be read as an episode in a national history of slowly growing appreciation of Australian Aboriginal culture, increasing discomfort with the story of racial and cultural inferiority, and willingness to acknowledge that Australia is the product of invasion.

Give me space: Sex, attractiveness, and mind perception as potential contributors to different comfort distances for humans and robots

Previous research in human-robot interactions has shown that comfort distance from robots is influenced by factors such as a robot's likability, gaze behavior, and attractiveness. However, comfort distance from robots versus humans has been sparsely explored, and with mixed findings. Across two studies (N = 443) we systematically explored whether type of agent (human vs humanoid robot), agent's sex, and distance influence comfort ratings. Comfort ratings are positively associated with distance for female (Study 1, N = 170) and male agents (Study 2, N = 273), and participants reported higher comfort for humans than humanoid robots. While higher comfort was reported for female vs male humans, there was no significant difference between comfort ratings for female vs male robots. Additionally, attractiveness and mind perception were found to parallel comfort ratings, meaning that humans were rated more attractive than humanoid robots, and higher on agency (the ability to do) and experience (the ability to feel). This suggests that attractiveness and mind perception might have contributed to the comfort ratings. Implications of these findings and avenues for future research are discussed.

Changes in Religious Figure Representation: A Study of the Holy Infant in Medieval and Renaissance Art

The representation of religious content has been long dominating the development of western art. A great achievement has been made through decades when Christian artists gradually developed a system of abstract representation to keep a comfortable distance from the pagan past, as well as to keep a balance between the aniconic doctrine and the desire for visual presentation. This article takes one of the most popular themes of religious painting, the Holy Infant as research focus to explain the changing representations of different eras. By comparing the plastic art representations of the holy infant, it is argued that changes have been made through symmetrical spatial layouts, characterizations, and metaphors.

Prediction accuracies of ray-tracing and regression models in open-plan offices

The purpose was to determine the prediction accuracies of an empirical regression model (Model 1) and a ray-tracing model (Model 2) in acoustically different open-plan offices. The measurement data was obtained from an open-plan office (81 m2) in which 22 completely different room acoustic conditions were built using alternative room absorption areas in ceiling, walls, and screens, and alternative screen heights. The sound pressure level (SPL) produced by an omnidirectional sound source was measured in six positions in each condition. The corresponding SPLs in 22 conditions were predicted using Models 1 and 2. The prediction accuracies were determined for the A-weighted SPL of speech in each position. In addition, the prediction accuracy was determined for the basic quantities of ISO 3382 standard: spatial decay rate of speech, D2,S, A-weighted SPL of speech at 4 m distance, Lp,A,S,4m, comfort distance, rC, and mean reverberation time T. The mean prediction accuracy of A-weighted SPL of speech was 4.2 dB for Model 1 and 3.4 dB for Model 2. Model 1 predicted D2,S, rC, and T more accurately than Model 2, while the opposite ranking order was found for Lp,A,S,4m. The prediction accuracies of both Models were sufficient when the effects of sound absorption materials and screen heights is simulated. The finding suggests that simple empirical regression models can provide sufficient prediction accuracy in most room acoustic conditions of open-plan offices.

The Interacting Effects of Men’s Height and Shoulder-to-Hip Ratio on Comfort Distance: A Virtual Reality Study

The Interacting Effects of Men’s Height and Shoulder-to-Hip Ratio on Comfort Distance: A Virtual Reality Study

Social Context and Tool Use Can Modulate Interpersonal Comfort Space

Recent research has investigated whether the representation of space around the body, in terms of reach-action (imagining of reaching another person) and comfort-social (tolerance of the other's proximity) spaces, may reflect a shared sensorimotor basis. Some studies exploiting motor plasticity induced by tool use have not observed sensorimotor identity (i.e., the same mechanisms that underlie, based on sensory information, the representation of proximal space in terms of action possibilities, goal-directed motor actions, and anticipation of the sensorimotor consequences), whereas evidence to the contrary has also emerged. Since the data are not fully convergent, here we wondered whether or not the combination of motor plasticity induced by tool use and the processing of the role of social context might reflect a similar modulation in both spaces. To this end, we conducted a randomized control trial with three groups of participants (N = 62) in which reaching and comfort distances were measured in Pre- and Post-tool-use sessions. The tool-use sessions were conducted under different conditions: (i) in the presence of a social stimulus (determining the social context) (Tool plus Mannequin group); (ii) without any stimulus (Only Tool group); (iii) in the presence of a box (Tool plus Object group) as a control condition. Results showed an extension of comfort distance in the Post-tool session of the Tool plus Mannequin group compared with the other conditions. Conversely, the reaching distance was larger after tool use than at the Pre-tool-use session, independently of the experimental conditions. Our findings suggest that motor plasticity impacts reaching and comfort spaces to different degrees; while reaching space is markedly sensitive to motor plasticity, comfort space needs qualification of social context information.

The relationship between action, social and multisensory spaces

Several spaces around the body have been described, contributing to interactions with objects (peripersonal) or people (interpersonal and personal). The sensorimotor and multisensory properties of action peripersonal space are assumed to be involved in the regulation of social personal and interpersonal spaces, but experimental evidence is tenuous. Hence, the present study investigated the relationship between multisensory integration and action and social spaces. Participants indicated when an approaching social or non-social stimulus was reachable by hand (reachable space), at a comfortable distance to interact with (interpersonal space), or at a distance beginning to cause discomfort (personal space). They also responded to a tactile stimulation delivered on the trunk during the approach of the visual stimulus (multisensory integration space). Results showed that participants were most comfortable with stimuli outside reachable space, and felt uncomfortable with stimuli well inside it. Furthermore, reachable, personal and interpersonal spaces were all positively correlated. Multisensory integration space extended beyond all other spaces and correlated only with personal space when facing a social stimulus. Considered together, these data confirm that action peripersonal space contributes to the regulation of social spaces and that multisensory integration is not specifically constrained by the spaces underlying motor action and social interactions.

Investigation of Patients’ Mood on Their Distance from the Pharmacist during Medication Instruction

Background: Pharmacists must adjust their distance from patients to facilitate communication during interviews and gain their trust. The distance between the patients and the pharmacists varies depending on many factors, such as gender, posture and the patients’ mood. Only a few of these papers have actually measured and validated distance with patients. In this study, we validated our method of assessing mood and measuring distance before beginning a survey with patients. Methods: We measured comfortable interpersonal distance among men and women using an ecological scenario, in which a pharmacist approaches the subject, and the subject is asked to stop the pharmacist at the distance he/she feel comfortable with. Five pharmacists and 33 subjects participated in the study. The Japanese version of the Brief Mood Questionnaire Checklists (BMC-J) was used to quantify the subject’s mood for the day, and then the distance from the pharmacist that the subjects considered comfortable was measured at the bedside. The relationship between the mood and distance obtained was examined. Results: The comfortable distance of subjects was influenced by gender, posture, and mood. The shortest distance was 94.7 ± 11.1 cm (mean ± SD), for the male subjects versus the female pharmacists in the sitting position. The distance of male subjects shorted when they had positive emotions and lengthened when they were worried. Female subjects maintained a long distance from both male and female pharmacists when they had positive emotions and a short distance when they were worried. Conclusion: Findings show that the distance changes depending on the subjects’ mood at the time of measurement. It was found that the present measurement method can be used to determine the psychological state of the patient and measure the comfort distance at that time, and can be used as a simple method to examine these relationships. Therefore, it is also considered a practical method for the next step, which is a clinical study on patients.

CrowdGAIL: A spatiotemporal aware method for agent navigation

<abstract><p>Agent navigation has been a crucial task in today's service and automated factories. Many efforts are to set specific rules for agents in a certain scenario to regulate the agent's behaviors. However, not all situations could be in advance considered, which might lead to terrible performance in a real-world application. In this paper, we propose CrowdGAIL, a method to learn from expert behaviors as an instructing policy, can train most 'human-like' agents in navigation problems without manually setting any reward function or beforehand regulations. First, the proposed model structure is based on generative adversarial imitation learning (GAIL), which imitates how humans take actions and move toward the target to a maximum extent, and by comparison, we prove the advantage of proximal policy optimization (PPO) to trust region policy optimization, thus, GAIL-PPO is what we base. Second, we design a special Sequential DemoBuffer compatible with the inner long short-term memory structure to apply spatiotemporal instruction on the agent's next step. Third, the paper demonstrates the potential of the model with an integrated social manner in a multi-agent scenario by considering human collision avoidance as well as social comfort distance. At last, experiments on the generated dataset from CrowdNav verify how close our model would act like a human being in the trajectory aspect and also how it could guide the multi-agents by avoiding any collision. Under the same evaluation metrics, CrowdGAIL shows better results compared with classic Social-GAN.</p></abstract>

Falling Stories: Cinematic Naturalism and Disability in Frank Norris’ and Stephen Crane's City Sketches

Falling Stories: Cinematic Naturalism and Disability in Frank Norris’ and Stephen Crane's City Sketches