Egocentric metric representations in peripersonal space: A bridge between motor resources and spatial memory

Ruggiero, Gennaro; Ruotolo, Francesco; Orti, Renato; Rauso, Barbara; Iachini, Tina

doi:10.1111/bjop.12467

Cited by 17 publications

(9 citation statements)

References 77 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…In addition, psychological factors such as anxiety affect the size of the IPS (i.e., the higher the anxiety levels the larger the IPS, see [ 16 , 17 , 18 , 19 ]; for a review, [ 2 ]). Interestingly for the aim of the present study, IPS is larger when people feel a high perceived risk in the presence of novel threats that cannot be controlled [ 20 , 21 , 22 , 23 , 24 ].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 88%

Social Distance during the COVID-19 Pandemic Reflects Perceived Rather Than Actual Risk

Iachini

Frassinetti

Ruotolo

et al. 2021

IJERPH

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Interpersonal space (IPS) is the area surrounding our own bodies in which we interact comfortably with other individuals. During the COVID-19 pandemic, keeping larger IPS than usual, along with wearing a face mask, is one of the most effective measures to slow down the COVID-19 outbreak. Here, we explore the contribution of actual and perceived risk of contagion and anxiety levels in regulating our preferred social distance from other people during the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic in Italy. In this study, 1293 individuals from six Italian regions with different levels of actual risk of infection participated in an online survey assessing their perceived risk to be infected, level of anxiety and IPS. Two tasks were adopted as measures of interpersonal distance: the Interpersonal Visual Analogue Scale and a questionnaire evaluating interpersonal distance with and without face mask. The results showed that the IPS regulation was affected by how people subjectively perceived COVID-19 risk and the related level of anxiety, not by actual objective risk. This clarifies that the role of threat in prompting avoidant behaviors expressed in increased IPS does not merely reflect environmental events but rather how they are subjectively experienced and represented.

show abstract

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 88%

Social Distance during the COVID-19 Pandemic Reflects Perceived Rather Than Actual Risk

Iachini

Frassinetti

Ruotolo

et al. 2021

IJERPH

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…The blindfolded sighted group was included to distinguish the weight of the explorative modalities (tactile sequential of the blind group vs simultaneous vision of the sighted group) and the lack of visual information (short term of the blindfolded participants vs long term of the blind participants). The experimental paradigm was based on previous studies involving different populations (healthy individuals, Ruggiero et al, 2016, 2021; Ruotolo et al, 2015; neurological patients, Iachini, Ruggiero, Conson, et al, 2009; Ruggiero et al, 2020; Ruggiero, Iavarone, & Iachini, 2018; blind people, Iachini et al, 2014; Ruggiero et al, 2009, 2012; Ruggiero, Ruotolo, & Iachini, 2018), which demonstrated its efficacy in inducing the specific involvement of spatial reference frames.…”

Section: Overview Of the Studymentioning

confidence: 99%

How ageing and blindness affect egocentric and allocentric spatial memory

Ruggiero

Ruotolo

Iachini

2021

Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Egocentric (subject-to-object) and allocentric (object-to-object) spatial reference frames are fundamental for representing the position of objects or places around us. The literature on spatial cognition in blind people has shown that lack of vision may limit the ability to represent spatial information in an allocentric rather than egocentric way. Furthermore, much research with sighted individuals has reported that aging has a negative impact on spatial memory. However, as far as we know, no study has assessed how ageing may affect the processing of spatial reference frames in individuals with different degrees of visual experience. To fill this gap, here we report data from a cross-sectional study in which a large sample of young and elderly participants (tot. 160) who were congenitally blind (long-term visual deprivation), adventitiously blind (late onset of blindness), blindfolded sighted (short-term visual deprivation) and sighted (full visual availability) performed a spatial memory task that required egocentric/allocentric distance judgments with regard to memorized stimuli. The results showed that egocentric judgments were better than allocentric ones and above all that the ability to process allocentric information was influenced by both age and visual status. Specifically, the allocentric judgments of congenitally blind elderly participants were worse than those of all other groups. These findings suggest that aging and congenital blindness can contribute to the worsening of the ability to represent spatial relationships between external, non-body-centered anchor points.

show abstract

“…This postural effect can be interpreted as a consequence of hardened activation of implicit motor simulation processes when the hands are not immediately available to engage in manual interaction. Note however that the effect of hand position disappeared for objects presented outside of the arm reaching space (i.e., in the extrapersonal space) compared to the participants' peripersonal space [27].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 85%

“…Sixty-nine French speaking university students (18)(19)(20)(21)(22)(23)(24)(25)(26)(27); mean age = 20.7; 44 females) participated in the experiment. All of them were right-handed according to their results at the Edinburgh Handedness Inventory [39] (mean score = 80, SD = 19, control group = 80, SD = 20, immobilized group = 81, SD = 18).…”

Section: Participantsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Short-term upper limb immobilization and the embodied view of memory: A pilot study

et al. 2021

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The present study aimed to explore the contribution of the manual sensorimotor system to the memory of graspable objects. Participants in the experimental group underwent a short-term upper limb immobilization design to decrease arousal to their dominant hand. Such designs are known to elicit updating of sensorimotor representations and to hardened use of implicit motor simulation, a process that occurs when observing graspable objects. Subsequently, a free recall and a recognition task of graspable and non-graspable objects took place. We found slower recognition for graspable than for non-graspable objects in the control group, while no differences appeared for the immobilized group. Moreover, the recognition latency for graspable objects tended to be slower for the control than for the immobilized group. These results suggest that a time demanding reactivation of motor simulation is elicited when a graspable object is correctly recognized by control participants. The effect of immobilization could prevent this reactivation, leading to faster recognition. Hence, immobilization selectively affects graspable object memory, showing a close relationship with the manual sphere of the sensorimotor system. We suggest that recognition accuracy would probably be affected in cases of stronger disruption of sensorimotor arousal.

show abstract

Egocentric metric representations in peripersonal space: A bridge between motor resources and spatial memory

Cited by 17 publications

References 77 publications

Social Distance during the COVID-19 Pandemic Reflects Perceived Rather Than Actual Risk

Social Distance during the COVID-19 Pandemic Reflects Perceived Rather Than Actual Risk

How ageing and blindness affect egocentric and allocentric spatial memory

Short-term upper limb immobilization and the embodied view of memory: A pilot study

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About