The space between us: the effect of perceived threat on discomfort distance and perceived pleasantness of interpersonal vicarious touch
Description
The space we keep between ourselves and others allows us either to engage in close shared experiences or to distance ourselves for safety. Focusing primarily on the latter, previous studies have identified a link between interpersonal boundaries and perceived threat, perceptual discrimination including pain perception as well as how we move and behave as a result. Although interpersonal distancing has been studied in a range of contexts, a mechanistic way of how such spatial behaviour might alter how we perceive affective touch has yet to be investigated. Here we probe the effect of perceived threat of COVID-19 on interpersonal boundary preferences and perceived pleasantness of vicarious affective touch. Our results demonstrate that increased perceived threat from COVID-19 is associated with larger boundaries of discomfort distance. Moreover, we show a positive association between perceived threat and pleasantness of vicarious touch coming from a member of the household, but no association with outsider touch. Importantly, rather than focusing on the purely “positive” and prosocial functions of affective touch, these results bolster a novel perspective that socially-relevant cues guide both approach and avoidance behaviours.
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Steps to reproduce
The walking sound effects were generated and recorded using Unity 3D (Unity Technologies, 2020). Free footstep sounds were downloaded from https://freesound.org/ and were split into single files, one file per footstep. A unity script loaded the footstep audio files when a walking animation was executed and synchronised each sound with the animation. A unity scene with an audio reverb zone was created with a maximum distance of 36 metres. An audio listener was located inside the reverb zone which allowed one to gradually change the footstep sound effect as the animation slowly moved closer to the target. The output was generated using the Unity Recorder tool.