Department Clinical Neurosciences, University Hospital Lausanne (CHUV), Lausanne, Switzerland.
Department of Pathology and Immunology, Faculty of Medicine, University of Geneva, Switzerland; Ludwig Institute Lausanne Branch, Lausanne, Switzerland.
Curr Biol. 2021 Jul 26;31(14):R889-R890. doi: 10.1016/j.cub.2021.06.001. Epub 2021 Jun 9.
Our social world has been transformed by the COVID-19 pandemic. Beyond the direct impact of the pandemic on physical health, the social distancing measures implemented worldwide to slow down disease transmission have dramatically impacted social interactions. These measures, including orders to stay at home and to maintain a social distance of at least 2 meters, have been essential to limit the spread of the disease, but they have had severe costs for humans as social animals. Right before and right after the adoption of the most stringent measures in Switzerland in Spring 2020, we were conducting a series of experiments to measure the representation of the so-called peripersonal space - the space immediately surrounding our body, where we normally interact with objects and other individuals. We found that the introduction of social distancing measures led to a reduction in the extent of the peripersonal space and enhanced its segregation between individuals, as if the presence of others in close space would activate an implicit form of freezing response.
我们的社交世界已经被 COVID-19 大流行所改变。除了大流行对身体健康的直接影响之外，为了减缓疾病传播而在全球范围内实施的社交距离措施也极大地影响了社交互动。这些措施包括居家令和保持至少 2 米的社交距离，这些措施对于限制疾病传播至关重要，但对于作为社会动物的人类来说，它们付出了沉重的代价。就在 2020 年春季瑞士采取最严格措施之前和之后，我们正在进行一系列实验来测量所谓的peripersonal 空间的表示-即我们身体周围的空间，在这个空间中，我们通常与物体和其他个体进行互动。我们发现，社交距离措施的引入导致了 peripersonal 空间范围的缩小，并增强了个体之间的隔离，就好像其他人在近距离空间中的存在会激活一种隐含的冻结反应形式。
