1,721,184 research outputs found
Avatar's ethnicity and gender modulate behavioral and physiological reactions to vicarious touch in immersive virtual reality
No full textThe subjective experience of being touched can be drastically affected not only by bottom-up variables (e.g. stimulus intensity) but also by top-down variables (e.g. toucher’s social characteristics1). Nevertheless, the neuroscientific investigation regarding the role of these higher-order factors is limited by ethical and practical constraints. Using Immersive Virtual Reality (IVR) we explored the subjective and physiological reactivity of healthy participants who wore a virtual body and observed an avatar caressing different part of it showing that it was possible to induce vicarious feelings of touch2. Here we expand previous knowledge by investigating the possible influence of gender and ethnicity of the touching avatar in modulating the experience of vicarious touch. We used IVR to substitute the participants’ real body with a virtual one. We collected behavioral (ratings about touch appropriateness, pleasantness, disgust, erogeneity) and physiological (skin conductance responses, heart rate) responses while Caucasian heterosexual men observed touches delivered on different parts of their virtual body by male or female Caucasian and African avatars. Bayesian parameter estimation showed that touches delivered by the female avatar were rated as more appropriate, pleasant and erogenous, and less disgusting compared to the male ones. These effects were further modulated by the touching avatar’s ethnicity: touches delivered on intimate areas were judged as more appropriate and more erogenous when performed by the female ingroup compared to the female outgroup avatar, and they were rated as less disgusting when delivered by the ingroup male compared to the outgroup male avatar. At the physiological level, the outgroup male touches elicited higher reactivity compared to the ingroup male touches, in particular when delivered on the intimate and social areas. No effect on the heart rate signals was found. Taken together, our results confirm that heterosexual men tend to avoid same-gender touch2; this effect seems to be enhanced by the toucher’s outgroup membership, suggesting a multi-layered stigmatization process. Future neuroimaging studies could shed light on the role of cognitive, affective and somatosensory components in shaping the outgroup and same-gender touch avoidance. Moreover, under the intergroup contact hypothesis, future studies could investigate whether positive virtual tactile interactions with outgroup avatars could reduce negative attitudes toward them, so that virtual touch may act as an important precursor to real intergroup touch.
References
1. Seger, C. R., Smith, E. R., Percy, E. J., & Conrey, F. R. (2014). Reach out and reduce prejudice: The impact of interpersonal touch on intergroup liking. Basic and Applied Social Psychology, 36(1), 51-58.
2. Fusaro, M., Lisi, M. P., Tieri, G., & Aglioti, S. M. (2021). Heterosexual, gay, and lesbian people’s reactivity to virtual caresses on their embodied avatars’ taboo zones. Scientific reports, 11(1), 1-1
The influence of sexual orientation on nonverbal interactions
No full textBackground: Immersive virtual reality (IVR) offers a way to recreate sensory environments that can duplicate reality and elicit veridical
experiences. Aims: Here using IVR we investigated the behaviour of men and women dealing with virtual characters to measure the quality of different types of nonverbal interactions (i.e., touch and interpersonal distance). Methods/Results Study1: In the first study,
heterosexual, gay and lesbian participants observed their virtual body while receiving touches on different parts (including taboo zones)
from a male or a female avatar. Results showed that touches on different areas elicited lifelike sensations that were dependent upon
the biological sex and the sexual orientation of the participants. Moreover, skin conductance responses showed that touches on the
intimate zones (breast and genitalia) elicited the highest reactivity compared to other zones. Methods/Results Study2: In the second
study, heterosexual and non-heterosexual men and women were asked to provide comfort-distance judgements in relation to approaching male or female virtual avatars. Results showed that same-sex comfort distance was smaller for non-heterosexual compared to heterosexual participants. Moreover, the larger distance toward the male avatar
kept by heterosexual men was also associated with the implicit prejudice (measured with an implicit association test) toward gay
men. Conclusion: The results from our studies suggest that sexual orientation, along with the most investigated role of sex, plays a
fundamental influence in regulating touch and interpersonal distance. Importantly, IVR seems to represent a unique opportunity to explore the psychophysiology of sexuality in the regulation of nonverbal interactions
Wearing a virtual body and being touched on it by different gender and ethnicity avatars
No full textThe subjective experience of being touched can be drastically affected not only by bottom-up
variables (e.g. stimulus intensity) but also by top-down variables (e.g.toucher‘s social
characteristics). Nevertheless, the neuroscientific investigation regarding the role of these
higher-order factors is limited by ethical and practical constraints. Using Immersive Virtual Reality
(IVR) we explored the subjective and physiological reactivity of healthy participants who wore a
virtual body and observed an avatar caressing different part of it and we found that it was possible to
induce vicarious feelings of touch. Here we expand previous knowledge by investigating the
possible influence of gender and ethnicity of the touching avatar in modulating the experience of
vicarious touch.We used IVR to substitute the participants’ real body with a virtual one. Then we
collected behavioral (ratings about touch appropriateness, pleasantness, disgust, erogeneity) and
physiological (skin conductance responses, heart rate) responses while Caucasian heterosexual men
observed touches on different parts of their virtual body delivered by male or female Caucasian and
African avatars. At the behavioral level, we found that touches on the intimate areas were rated as
the least appropriate compared to the neutral and social ones. Moreover, the touches delivered by a
male avatar were judged as less appropriate than those delivered by a female avatar. Furthermore,
male touches in the intimate areas evoked the highest disgust sensations, while female touches in the
intimate areas induced highest pleasantness and erogeneity. Interestingly, ethnicity did not induce
any modulation. At the physiological level, the African male touches elicited higher reactivity
compared to the Caucasian male touches when delivered on the intimate areas. Taken together, these
results confirm the preference for the female touch among Caucasian heterosexual men and suggest
that the role of toucher’s ethnicity may emerge in the rooted automatic responses rather than in the
explicit evaluations
The flipped house and the bubble. Domestic space in the time of coronavirus
No full textThe SARS-CoV-2 pandemic put the spatial layouts of contemporary housing to the test.
During the strict lockdowns in the early phases of the outbreak and the limited, temporary restrictions of the later phases, the safeguarding of public health was inevitably enforced by confining people at home, thus severing, by reasons of force majeure, the traditional relationship between the house and the city.
As a result, every household had to contain within itself all aspects of public and private life, regardless of the spatial qualities and the extension of the dwelling. The unexpected new role of the last defence line against the virus showed all the advantages and limits of contemporary housing and the need for a rethinking of some of their typical features. The aim of this article is to investigate how the residential space, as a whole and in its constituent parts, has become a fundamental element in a difficult period, managing to incorporate unexpected functions and requirements but also revealing a series of congenital weaknesses
Vitamin K antagonists and osteoporotic fractures: insights from comparisons with the NOACs
No full textInfluence of cognitive stance and physical perspective on subjective and autonomic reactivity to observed pain and pleasure: An immersive virtual reality study
No full textObserving others’ pain may induce a reaction called personal distress that may be influenced by top-down (imagine self or other in pain, i.e., self- vs other-oriented stance) and bottom-up (physical perspective of those who suffer, i.e., first vs third person perspective- 1PP vs 3PP) processes. The different contributions of these processes have not been teased apart. By capitalizing on the power of Immersive Virtual Reality, we explored how behavioural (subjective ratings) and physiological reactivity (skin conductance reactivity, SCR) to pain and pleasure delivered to an avatar was influenced by Cognitive stance and Physical perspective. Taking an Other-Oriented stance leads to attributing higher congruent valence (i.e. pain rated as unpleasant and pleasure as pleasant) and intensity to the stimuli and induces reduced SCR. Ownership over the virtual limb was maximal in 1PP where physiological reactivity to the stimuli was comparable. Our results highlight different components underpinning reactivity to pain and pleasure
"Trans-collateral" angioplasty for a challenging chronic total occlusion of the tibial vessels: a novel approach to percutaneous revascularization in critical lower limb ischemia.
No full textMidfrontal-occipital Ɵ-tACS modulates cognitive conflicts related to bodily stimuli
Full text linkNeurophysiological studies show that during tasks tapping cognitive control (like the Flanker task), midfrontal theta (MFΘ) oscillations are associated with conflict and error processing and neural top- down modulation of perceptual processing. What remains unknown is whether perceptual encoding of category-specific stimuli (e.g. body vs letters) used in Flanker-like tasks is modulated by theta oscillations. To explore this issue, we delivered transcranial Alternating Current Stimulation (tACS) in the theta frequency band (6Hz) over the medial frontal cortex (MFC) and the extrastriate body area (EBA) while healthy participants performed two variants of the classical Flanker task, one with stimuli representing human hands (i.e. Hand-Flanker) and the other with stimuli representing coloured letters (i.e. Letter-Flanker). More specifically, we aimed at investigating whether Θ-tACS involving a body-related area may modulate the long-range communication between neuronal populations underlying conflict monitoring and visuo-perceptual encoding of hand stimuli without affecting the conflict driven by letter stimuli. Results showed faster correct response times during Θ-tACS in the Hand-Flanker compared to γ-tACS (40Hz) and sham. Importantly, such an effect did not emerge in the Letter-Flanker. Our findings show that theta oscillations over midfrontal-occipital areas modulate bodily specific, stimulus content driven aspects of cognitive control
Vicarious touch in Immersive Virtual Reality
No full textSocial touch is an important tool to communicate emotions but it’s still unclear how it could promote and maintain social bonds between individuals. Immersive Virtual Reality offers unprecedented opportunities to explore the effect of somatosensory stimuli (like pain and touch) even when they are not actually delivered. We found that the the mere observation of touch kinematics delivered on a first person perspective embodied avatar causes different behavioural and psychophysiological reactions according to the gender of the participant, the gender of the toucher and the area touched .The vicarious experience in virtual reality allows to address more directly a delicate issue that can otherwise be explored only through imagination).
Interpersonal distance: modulation of individual and social behaviour related to the COVID-19 pandemics
No full textRelated to the Covid-19 outbreak, many countries all around the world have decided to impose restrictions to slow down the spreading and contain the infection, ranging from suggesting physical- distancing to imposing the lockdown of entire country. In this context, it is highly plausible that the fear of being infected, the physical distancing imposed by governments along with individual priorities, might have an influence on the distance we keep with others. To investigate this issue, we devised: 1) an online survey assessing demographics, the opinions toward quarantine, the self-reported altruism, the perceived vulnerability to disease and a self-report regarding moral attitudes; 2) an online task to test the interpersonal distance participants keep with others depending on the gender, the status of other’s infection (positive or negative to the COVID-19 test or not tested) and whether the other is wearing or not protective equipment
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