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The effect of facial expressions on peripersonal and interpersonal spaces

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Abstract

Identifying individuals’ intent through the emotional valence conveyed by their facial expression influences our capacity to approach-avoid these individuals during social interactions. Here, we explore if and how the emotional valence of others’ facial expressiveness modulates peripersonal-action and interpersonal-social spaces. Through Immersive Virtual Reality, participants determined reachability-distance (for peripersonal space) and comfort-distance (for interpersonal space) from male/female virtual confederates exhibiting happy, angry and neutral facial expressions while being approached by (passive-approach) or walking toward (active-approach) them. Results showed an increase of distance when seeing angry rather than happy confederates in both approach conditions of comfort-distance. The effect also appeared in reachability-distance, but only in the passive-approach. Anger prompts avoidant behaviors, and thus an expansion of distance, particularly with a potential violation of near body space by an intruder. Overall, the findings suggest that peripersonal-action space, in comparison with interpersonal-social space, is similarly sensitive to the emotional valence of stimuli. We propose that this similarity could reflect a common adaptive mechanism shared by these spaces, presumably at different degrees, for ensuring self-protection functions.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Laboratory of Cognitive Science and Immersive Virtual Reality, CS-IVR, Department of Psychology, Second University of Naples, Viale Ellittico, 31, 81100, Caserta, Italy

    Gennaro Ruggiero, Mariachiara Rapuano, Armando Schiano di Cola & Tina Iachini

  2. Department of Psychology, University of Bologna, Bologna, Italy

    Francesca Frassinetti

  3. Cognitive and Affective Sciences Laboratory, UMR CNRS 9193, University of Lille, Villeneuve d’Ascq, France

    Yann Coello

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  1. Gennaro Ruggiero
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  2. Francesca Frassinetti
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  3. Yann Coello
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  4. Mariachiara Rapuano
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  5. Armando Schiano di Cola
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  6. Tina Iachini
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Correspondence to Gennaro Ruggiero.

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All procedures performed in the present study involving healthy participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional research committee and with the 1964 Helsinki declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards.

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 Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study.

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Ruggiero, G., Frassinetti, F., Coello, Y. et al. The effect of facial expressions on peripersonal and interpersonal spaces. Psychological Research 81, 1232–1240 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00426-016-0806-x

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00426-016-0806-x

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