title: Your place or mine: shared sensory experiences elicit a remapping of peripersonal space.
abstract: Our perceptual systems integrate multisensory information about objects that are close to our bodies, which allow us to respond quickly and appropriately to potential threats, as well as act upon and manipulate useful tools. Intriguingly, the representation of this area close to our body, known as the multisensory 'peripersonal space' (PPS), can expand or contract during social interactions. However, it is not yet known how different social interactions can alter the representation of PPS. In particular, shared sensory experiences, such as those elicited by bodily illusions such as the enfacement illusion, can induce feelings of ownership over the other's body which has also been shown to increase the remapping of the other's sensory experiences onto our own bodies. The current study investigated whether such shared sensory experiences between two people induced by the enfacement illusion could alter the way PPS was represented, and whether this alteration could be best described as an expansion of one's own PPS towards the other or a remapping of the other's PPS onto one's own. An audio-tactile integration task allowed us to measure the extent of the PPS before and after a shared sensory experience with a confederate. Our results showed a clear increase in audio-tactile integration in the space close to the confederate's body after the shared experience. Importantly, this increase did not extend across the space between participant and confederate, as would be expected if the participant's PPS had expanded. Thus, the pattern of results is more consistent with a partial remapping of the confederate's PPS onto the participant's own PPS. These results have important consequences for our understanding of interpersonal space during different kinds of social interactions.
authors.affiliation: Laboratory of Action and Body, Department of Psychology, Royal Holloway, University of London, UK. Electronic address: lara.maister@rhul.ac.uk.
authors.forename: Lara
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Maister
authors.affiliation: Laboratory of Action and Body, Department of Psychology, Royal Holloway, University of London, UK.
authors.forename: Flavia
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Cardini
authors.affiliation: Laboratory of Action and Body, Department of Psychology, Royal Holloway, University of London, UK.
authors.forename: Giorgia
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Zamariola
authors.affiliation: Laboratory of Cognitive Neuroscience, Center for Neuroprosthethics, Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, Switzerland; Department of Psychology, Alma Mater Studiorium, Università di Bologna, Cesena, Italy.
authors.forename: Andrea
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Serino
authors.affiliation: Laboratory of Action and Body, Department of Psychology, Royal Holloway, University of London, UK.
authors.forename: Manos
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Tsakiris
mesh_terms: D000161:Acoustic Stimulation; D000704:Analysis of Variance; D001828:Body Image; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007088:Illusions; D007398:Interpersonal Relations; D010550:Personal Space; D010812:Physical Stimulation; D011930:Reaction Time / Q000502:physiology; D013028:Space Perception / Q000502:physiology*; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires; D055698:Touch Perception / Q000502:physiology*; D055815:Young Adult
keywords: Audiotactile integration; Body ownership; Multisensory stimulation; Peripersonal space; Social cognition