ArticleScientific reports2021
Defensive functions provoke similar psychophysiological reactions in reaching and comfort spaces.
Article in Scientific reports, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 17 papers.
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Who cites it
17 citing papers in PubMed.
- Baby face enlarges perceived reachable space.Experimental brain research · 2026Article
- Visual attention towards virtual humans as a function of spatial distance and emotional expression: an eye-tracking study.Psychological research · 2026Article
- How implicit social information shapes spatial memory of objects.Psychological research · 2026Article
- Peripersonal space and interpersonal distance as windows onto multisensory body representation in adolescents with overgrowth syndromes.Frontiers in human neuroscience · 2026Article
- Changes in interpersonal distance modulate social attention engagement: evidence from EEG alpha band suppression.Social cognitive and affective neuroscience · 2025Article
- How different face mask types affect interpersonal distance perception and threat feeling in social interaction.Cognitive processing · 2024Article
- Spatial memory and frames of reference: How deeply do we rely on the body and the environment?Cognitive processing · 2024Article
- An attention-based approach for assessing the effectiveness of emotion-evoking in immersive environment.Heliyon · 2024Article
- Emotion-gaze interaction affects time-to-collision estimates, but not preferred interpersonal distance towards looming faces.Frontiers in psychology · 2024Article
- Down-modulation of functional ventral striatum activation for emotional face stimuli in patients with insula damage.PloS one · 2024Article
- Early threat perception is independent of later cognitive and behavioral control. A virtual reality-EEG-ECG study.Cerebral cortex (New York, N.Y. : 1991) · 2023Article
- Interaction with Virtual Humans and Effect of Emotional Expressions: Anger Matters!Journal of clinical medicine · 2023Article
- Article
- Simulated proximity enhances perceptual and physiological responses to emotional facial expressions.Scientific reports · 2022Article
- Personal space regulation is affected by unilateral temporal lesions beyond the amygdala.Cerebral cortex communications · 2022Article
- How Interpersonal Distance Between Avatar and Human Influences Facial Affect Recognition in Immersive Virtual Reality.Frontiers in psychology · 2021Article
- Influence of Wearing Surgical Mask on Interpersonal Space Perception Between Mainland Chinese and Taiwanese People.Frontiers in psychology · 2021Article
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Authors and funding
5 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
The space around the body crucially serves a variety of functions, first and foremost, preserving one's own safety and avoiding injury. Recent research has shown that emotional information, in particular threatening facial expressions, affects the regulation of peripersonal-reaching space (PPS, for action with objects) and interpersonal-comfort space (IPS, for social interaction). Here we explored if emotional facial expressions may similarly or differently affect both spaces in terms of psychophysiological reactions (cardiac inter-beat intervals: IBIs, i.e. inverse of heart rate; Skin Conductance Response amplitude: SCR amplitude) and spatial distance. Through Immersive Virtual Reality technology, participants determined reaching-distance (PPS) and comfort-distance (IPS) from virtual confederates exhibiting happy/angry/neutral facial expressions while being approached by them. During these interactions, spatial distance and psychophysiological reactions were recorded. Results revealed that when interacting with angry virtual confederates the distance increased similarly in both comfort-social and reaching-action spaces. Moreover, interacting with virtual confederates exhibiting angry rather than happy or neutral expressions provoked similar psychophysiological activations (SCR amplitude, IBIs) in both spaces. Regression analyses showed that psychophysiological activations, particularly SCR amplitude in response to virtual confederates approaching with angry expressions, were able to predict the increase of PPS and IPS. These findings suggest that self-protection functions could be the expression of a common defensive mechanism shared by social and action spaces.
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