# Social processing distorts physical distance perception

## TL;DR

People with higher psychopathic traits misjudge how close others are, but not objects, showing social factors affect basic perception.

## Contribution

This study reveals a novel top-down effect of psychopathic traits on physical distance perception in social contexts.

## Key findings

- Psychopathic traits distort egocentric space perception for anthropomorphic agents.
- Emotional expressions have no effect when task-irrelevant.
- Non-anthropomorphic agents do not trigger the same perceptual distortion.

## Abstract

Psychopathy is traditionally linked to higher-level cognitive processes, but its impact on low-level cognitive functions has remained largely unexplored. This study investigates the relationship between the fundamental cognitive function of physical distance estimation and our social predisposition towards others, as captured by psychopathic traits, grouped into the three facets of Fearless Dominance, Self-Centered Impulsivity and Coldheartedness. Using an innovative experimental design, participants estimated the distance of an approaching avatar agent. We demonstrate that social processing, as reflected in the scale of Psychopathy in the general population, significantly distorts egocentric space perception. Strikingly, this distortion is absent with non-anthropomorphic agents. The study also reveals that agent emotional expressions do not affect distance estimation, when they are task-irrelevant, suggesting a disocciation between the effect of psychopathic traits on social processing and emotion processing. These results uncover a direct top-down effect of psychopathic traits on basic spatial cognition, in the presence of others. These new insights into the basic cognitive mechanisms underlying social interactions have broader implications for any field involving interpersonal spatial behaviour.

The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1038/s41598-025-89935-9.