Embodiment of peripersonal space perception: Does the sense of threat in arachnophobia influence reachability judgments?

Marichal, Baudouin;Grade, Stéphane;Dethier, Vincent;Philippot, Pierre;Edwards, Martin
(2014) The annual meeting of the Belgium Association for Psychological Sciences (BAPS) — Location: KUL Leuven, Belgium (27.May.2014)

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Abstract
Needs, desires, and emotions have been proven to have an influence on space perception, partly because of their modulator and guiding role towards behaviour and action. Literature has already shown evidence that the sense of threat induced by danger or fear have an influence on perceived peripersonal space boundary. However, studies results are still contradictory. The present study aimed at investigating whether and how one’s level of arachnophobia measured using a questionnaire could moderate one’s reachable space perception towards spider stimuli.In this experiment, participants were required to make reachability judgments through three tasks (static, moving and animated stimuli). Variables about threat (i.e., butterfly, diabolo, and spider stimuli) and movement (such as direction (i.e., receding vs approaching), or speed) were manipulated to assess if some characteristics would moderate participant’s response.While the static task didn’t show any significant effect of the level of phobia or the stimulus category, the moving and animated tasks revealed a positive and significant relationship between the level of phobia and an enlargement of perceived peripersonal space, especially for approaching stimuli. Furthermore, significant differences between the stimulus categories only emerged in the non-phobic group.
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Marichal, B., Grade, S., Dethier, V., Philippot, P., & Edwards, M. (2014). Embodiment of peripersonal space perception: Does the sense of threat in arachnophobia influence reachability judgments? The annual meeting of the Belgium Association for Psychological Sciences (BAPS), KUL Leuven, Belgium. https://hdl.handle.net/2078.5/215726