Your space or mine: Trait anxiety affects the peripersonal space plasticity in a social context.

ABSTRACT: Peripersonal space (PPS) is a plastic sector of space surrounding the body whose boundaries are mapped through multisensory integration and shifted by individual motor experiences. To date, nothing is known about PPS plasticity after a social motor interaction, and whether individual traits, such as anxiety, modulate it. Here, participants were instructed to manipulate small objects within their reaching space without tool-use, collaboratively helped by a confederate who employed a tool in her extrapersonal space. Social cooperative motor training shifts PPS's boundaries even if participants' motor actions are confined within their reaching space. Crucially, trait anxiety steers the shift direction: engaging in a cooperative motor interaction with another unfamiliar person expands PPS in l

SUBMITTER: Ferroni F 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC11889492 | biostudies-literature | 2025 Feb

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature