Attention To The Effect Of Load On Visual Priority Of Personal Space

Personal space has the function of communication, adjustment and self protection. In the field of psychology, personal space has become a cross subject of interpersonal psychology, environmental psychology and social psychology and so on. The present research basically focused on the individual differences and the research methods, mainly focused on the external influence factors of personal space. When it comes to the study of internal mechanism, individuals mainly are committed to exploring the changes in neurophysiology with different levels of personal space invasion. But the internal process on the formation of the personal space in these studies is not discussed.The formation of the personal space will not only affected by the perceived visual stimulation, but also be influenced by other channel, such as the sound of footsteps, the smell and the skin temperature we can feel by others. Thus, it can be said that the personal space may be a process of multi-channel perception. But whether the stimulation of a single channel plays a determinative role in the process, or the stimulations of a multi-channel? And as an important machining process in the formation of human behavior, attention involved in the most of the psychological process. So what the role it plays in personal space? These problems are worth to verify and discuss. Based on these problems, this study will explore the multi-channel perception of personal space and the role of the attention in the perception by two researches with four experiments, which in order to explain the internal process on the formation of the personal space.The first study explores the visual precedence effect in personal space by Experiment 1 and Experiment 2. We verify the multi-channel perception of personal space by Experiment 1.In this experiment, we use the classical stop-distance measurements to explore the characteristics of personal space under two conditions of visual cues(the state of people who closed to subjects) and auditory cues (the footsteps). We find that personal space was affected by a multi-channel stimulation. Based on the results of Experiment 1, we designed the Experiment 2 to investigate whether there is visual precedence effect in the formation of personal space under the condition of multi-channel stimulus. In this experiment, we set two kinds of situations with audio and visual clues to exist together by change the compatibility of channel to explore the characteristics of personal space. The result suggests that the personal space has no significant difference between consistent clues and inconsistent clues.The second study explores the role of attention in the formation of personal space, including Experiment 3 and Experiment 4. Experiment 3 studies the influence of attentional load in the personal space through the visual cues. We explore the characteristics of personal space under two conditions of low attentional load levels and high attentional load levels by set two kinds of situations with visual load and auditory load to illustrate the attention mechanism on the formation of the personal space. The result suggests that the higher attentional load levels, the less personal space; the personal space is smaller in the condition of visual load than auditory load. Experiment 4 studies the influence of attentional load in the visual precedence effect of personal space. We explore the differences of personal space between consistent clues and inconsistent clues under two conditions of low attentional load levels and high attentional load levels. We find that the personal space has significant difference under these two conditions.Through the experiment and analysis, we draw the following conclusions:(1) the personal space is a process of multi-channel perception. (2) under the condition of multi-channel stimulus, the formation of personal space is mainly based on visual stimulus,and this means there is visual precedence effect.(3) attention plays an important role in regulating the personal space, and the attentional load of the different channels and levels have a different effect on personal space.(4) the attentional load can change visual precedence effect in personal space.(5) the personal space of subjects has significant difference in the face of different gender of people who closed to subjects, but the gender of subjects led to no difference in terms of personal space.This study explores the foundational internal processing mechanism of personal space in the field of applied psychology for the first time, which breaks through the previous research. At the same time, it offers basis for individuals to establish a suitable personal space in different situation.In addition, it also provides a new way of thinking for carrying out environmental design and improving the efficiency of work and study.