ArticleScientific reports2022
During the COVID-19 pandemic participants prefer settings with a face mask, no interaction and at a closer distance.
Article in Scientific reports, 2022. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 11 papers.
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Who cites it
11 citing papers in PubMed, 18 citations in OpenAlex.
- From Mandate to Choice: How Voluntary Mask Wearing Shapes Interpersonal Distance Among University Students After COVID-19.Healthcare (Basel, Switzerland) · 2025Article
- Infectious touching: Has COVID-19 changed our perceptions of social touch? A neural and behavioural study.Social cognitive and affective neuroscience · 2025Article
- How different face mask types affect interpersonal distance perception and threat feeling in social interaction.Cognitive processing · 2024Article
- The social factors behind the mask: contextual effects on trait impressions from faces wearing a face mask.Cognitive research: principles and implications · 2024Article
- Perception of interpersonal distance and social distancing before and during COVID-19 pandemic.Scientific reports · 2024Article
- The COVID-19 pandemic and changes in social behavior: Protective face masks reduce deliberate social distancing preferences while leaving automatic avoidance behavior unaffected.Cognitive research: principles and implications · 2024Article
- Perceived Interpersonal Distances: A Cross-Cultural Analysis of Young Taiwanese and Young Southeast Asians during the COVID-19 Pandemic.Behavioral sciences (Basel, Switzerland) · 2023Article
- Effects of Target Variables on Interpersonal Distance Perception for Young Taiwanese during the COVID-19 Pandemic.Healthcare (Basel, Switzerland) · 2023Article
- Refraining from interaction can decrease fear of physical closeness during COVID-19.Scientific reports · 2023Article
- Impact of face masks and sunglasses on attractiveness, trustworthiness, and familiarity, and limited time effect: a Japanese sample.Discover psychology · 2023Article
- A quantitative study on peripersonal space in anorexia nervosa and healthy subjects: Role of social variables and association with psychopathology.International journal of clinical and health psychology : IJCHPArticle
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
3 authors at 1 institution in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Peripersonal space is the space surrounding our body, where multisensory integration of stimuli and action execution take place. The size of peripersonal space is flexible and subject to change by various personal and situational factors. The dynamic representation of our peripersonal space modulates our spatial behaviors towards other individuals. During the COVID-19 pandemic, this spatial behavior was modified by two further factors: social distancing and wearing a face mask. Evidence from offline and online studies on the impact of a face mask on pro-social behavior is mixed. In an attempt to clarify the role of face masks as pro-social or anti-social signals, 235 observers participated in the present online study. They watched pictures of two models standing at three different distances from each other (50, 90 and 150 cm), who were either wearing a face mask or not and were either interacting by initiating a hand shake or just standing still. The observers' task was to classify the model by gender. Our results show that observers react fastest, and therefore show least avoidance, for the shortest distances (50 and 90 cm) but only when models wear a face mask and do not interact. Thus, our results document both pro- and anti-social consequences of face masks as a result of the complex interplay between social distancing and interactive behavior. Practical implications of these findings are discussed.
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