ArticleHuman brain mapping2017
Emotion and personal space: Neural correlates of approach-avoidance tendencies to different facial expressions as a function of coldhearted psychopathic traits.
Article in Human brain mapping, 2017. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 18 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
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Who cites it
18 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it.
- A Systematic Literature Review of Neuroimaging of Psychopathic Traits.Frontiers in psychiatry · 2019Pooled it
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- I fear you're getting too close: neural correlates of personal space violation in paranoia.Schizophrenia (Heidelberg, Germany) · 2025Article
- Sensory and Multisensory Processing Changes and Their Contributions to Autism and Schizophrenia.Current topics in behavioral neurosciences · 2025Review
- Altered representation of peripersonal and interpersonal space in psychopathology.Clinical psychology review · 2024Review
- The impact of acute violent videogame exposure on neurocognitive markers of empathic concern.Social cognitive and affective neuroscience · 2024Article
- Neuroanatomical correlates of peripersonal space: bridging the gap between perception, action, emotion and social cognition.Brain structure & function · 2024Review
- Away from the herd: loneliness as a dysfunction of social alignment.Social cognitive and affective neuroscience · 2024Article
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- Generalization of the modulatory effect of social interaction on personal space.Frontiers in psychology · 2023Article
- A neuroimaging study of interpersonal distance in identical and fraternal twins.Human brain mapping · 2022Article
- Neural and behavioral alterations of a real-time interpersonal distance (IPD) development process in differing social status interactions.Frontiers in behavioral neuroscience · 2022Article
- Neural Alterations in Interpersonal Distance (IPD) Cognition and Its Correlation with IPD Behavior: A Systematic Review.Brain sciences · 2021Review
- Molecular and neurocircuitry mechanisms of social avoidance.Cellular and molecular life sciences : CMLS · 2021Review
- Brain Plasticity Reflects Specialized Cognitive Development Induced by Musical Training.Cerebral cortex communications · 2021Article
- The Interrelation Between Peripersonal Action Space and Interpersonal Social Space: Psychophysiological Evidence and Clinical Implications.Frontiers in human neuroscience · 2021Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
4 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
In social interactions, humans are expected to regulate interpersonal distance in response to the emotion displayed by others. Yet, the neural mechanisms implicated in approach-avoidance tendencies to distinct emotional expressions have not been fully described. Here, we investigated the neural systems implicated in regulating the distance to different emotions, and how they vary as a function of empathy. Twenty-three healthy participants assessed for psychopathic traits underwent fMRI scanning while they viewed approaching and withdrawing angry, fearful, happy, sad and neutral faces. Participants were also asked to set the distance to those faces on a computer screen, and to adjust the physical distance from the experimenter outside the scanner. Participants kept the greatest distances from angry faces, and shortest from happy expressions. This was accompanied by increased activation in the dorsomedial prefrontal and orbitofrontal cortices, inferior frontal gyrus, and temporoparietal junction for angry and happy expressions relative to the other emotions. Irrespective of emotion, longer distances were kept from approaching faces, which was associated with increased activation in the amygdala and insula, as well as parietal and prefrontal regions. Amygdala activation was positively correlated with greater preferred distances to angry, fearful and sad expressions. Moreover, participants scoring higher on coldhearted psychopathic traits (lower empathy) showed reduced amygdala activation to sad expressions. These findings elucidate the neural mechanisms underlying social approach-avoidance, and how they are related to variations in empathy. Hum Brain Mapp 38:1492-1506, 2017. © 2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
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