Department of Cognitive Science and Psychology, University of Trento, Trento, Italy.
Department of Cognitive Science and Psychology, University of Trento, Trento, Italy.
Cortex. 2018 Jul;104:163-179. doi: 10.1016/j.cortex.2017.08.033. Epub 2017 Sep 6.
The perception of our self is not restricted to our physical boundaries, but it extends beyond the body to incorporate the space where individual-environment interactions occur, i.e., the peripersonal space (PPS). PPS is generally conceived as a low-level multisensory-motor interface mediating hand-object interactions. Recent studies, however, showed that PPS representation is affected by higher-level cognitive factors. Here we asked whether the multisensory representation of PPS is influenced by high-level mechanisms implied in social interactions, such as the social perception of others. To this aim, in Experiment 1, we developed and validated a new multisensory interaction task in mixed reality (i.e., the Social PPS task). This task allows measuring the boundaries of PPS between one self and another person in a fully controlled, yet highly ecological, set-up. In the Experiment 2, we used this task to measure how participants' PPS varied when facing another person. The social perception of this person was manipulated via a classic social psychology procedure, so that, in two conditions, she was perceived either as a moral or an immoral character. We found that PPS representation is sensitive to the social perception of the other, being more extended when participants were facing a moral than when facing an immoral person. This effect was specific for social context, as no change in PPS was found if participants were facing an object, instead of the person. Interestingly, the social manipulation affected also attitude, identification, willingness to interact with the other, so as interpersonal distance. Together these findings show that social perception of others affects both the psychological representation of the others in relation to oneself and the multisensory representations of the space between oneself and the other, offering new insights about the role of social cognition in body representation.
自我认知不仅局限于我们的身体边界，还超越了身体，包含了个体与环境相互作用的空间，即个人空间（PPS）。PPS 通常被认为是一个低级别的多感觉运动界面，介导手与物体的相互作用。然而，最近的研究表明，PPS 的表示受到更高层次认知因素的影响。在这里，我们想知道 PPS 的多感觉表示是否受到社交互动中隐含的高级机制的影响，例如对他人的社会感知。为此，在实验 1 中，我们在混合现实中开发并验证了一项新的多感觉交互任务（即社会 PPS 任务）。该任务允许在完全控制但高度生态的环境中测量一个自我和另一个人之间的 PPS 边界。在实验 2 中，我们使用此任务来测量参与者在面对另一个人时 PPS 的变化。通过经典的社会心理学程序来操纵这个人的社会感知，使得在两种情况下，参与者分别将其感知为有道德或不道德的人。我们发现，PPS 的表示对他人的社会感知敏感，当参与者面对有道德的人时，PPS 表示更广泛。这种效应是特定于社会背景的，因为如果参与者面对的是物体而不是人，则 PPS 没有变化。有趣的是，社会操纵还影响了态度、认同、与他人互动的意愿以及人际距离。这些发现共同表明，他人的社会感知会影响与自我相关的他人的心理表示以及自我与他人之间的空间的多感觉表示，为社会认知在身体表示中的作用提供了新的见解。
