ANKIT MAURYA¹, TONY THOMAS¹; ¹Indian Institute of Technology Roorkee, Roorkee, India

Previous studies have shown temporal dilation for emotionally salient stimuli. Also, processing of such stimuli is enhanced in the graspable space of the hands, known as peri-hand space (PHS). However, the spatio-temporal interaction for emotionally salient stimuli in peri-hand space remains unexamined. Therefore, the present study investigated the temporal factors underlying the processing of emotionally salient stimuli in PHS. Participants completed standard temporal bisection task (N=34), that used a short (200 ms) & long (800 ms) as the standard duration. Participants had to judge whether the duration ranging from 200 ms to 800 ms (in steps of 100 ms) were closer to ‘Short’ or ‘Long’, in two hand conditions. First condition required participants to place their hands on the sides of a computer monitor, making the stimuli appear in peri-hand space (Near-hand). Second condition required the hands to be placed on the lap, making the stimuli appear outside of peri-hand space (Far-hand). The stimuli were high arousal (positive and negative) and low arousal (neutral) images. Participant’s responses were compared between ‘Near-hand’ and ‘Far-hand’ conditions. Results showed lower Point of Subjective Equality (PSE) for high arousal stimuli (M = 486, SD = 55.41) compared to low arousal stimuli (M=508, SD=60.11), [t (33) = -3.53, p = 0.001] for the near-hand condition. No such PSE differences were obtained in the far-hand condition, [p = .08]. The findings imply temporal dilation for highly arousing emotional stimuli in PHS and not the space beyond, perhaps to allow for in-depth and detailed cognitive evaluation of emotional salience. The temporal dilation seems to be driven by early anticipatory mechanisms associated with PHS. Further, emotional salience seems to have spatial characteristics; arousing stimuli get prioritized in PHS and not the space beyond, thus providing allowance for better planning and execution of defensive actions in PHS.