by Kim Pederson…….

The Toast put up a fun blog recently by Mallory Ortberg called “Don’t Stand So Close to Me: People Ignoring Personal Boundaries in Western Art History.” In it she sends up several examples of classic art in which one person (mostly males) disrespects the personal space of another person (mostly females). The very idea of “personal space” is an intriguing one. It is, according to my go-to source Wikipedia, “the region surrounding a person which they regard as psychologically theirs.” Ignoring the grammar glitch in that statement, it’s wild to think that we think we “own” the space around us, a 1.5 to 4 foot buffer zone (in Western society) that we hold dear and can even get freaked out about if someone encroaches on it without permission or encouragement.

It was even wilder to discover that our strong reactions to personal space violations (PSVs) come from our amygdala, those two almond-shaped nerve bundles buried deep in our temporal lobes that process memory, decision-making, and emotional reactions. (As proof of this, people with damaged amygs do not react to PSVs.)

Our sense of personal invisible protective bubbles starts to develop at age 3 or 4 and then is firmly in place by the time we are tweens. What prompted our amygs to be so untouchy-feely in terms of space? Instinctive fear, pure and simple. Our hindbrain reaction to something unfamiliar in close proximity is run first, ask questions later.

As you might expect (or not care), there is a science of personal space, otherwise known as proxemics. Proxemics is a subcategory of the study of nonverbal communication, which also includes haptics (touch), kinesics (body movement), vocalics (paralanguage or the nonverbal “quality” of speech such as pitch and volume that conveys meaning or emotion), and chronemics (the time structure or “tempo” of communications).

Interestingly (to me at least, as I’m always careful to qualify), one aspect of proxemics used to measure the intimacy between “two conversants” is the “sociopetal-sociofugal axis [SPSFA],” which is the angle formed by the “axis of the conversants’ shoulders.” Two people in a sociopetal position are standing face to face, which encourages interaction; sociofugal is the opposite, back to back, which as you might guess, discourages conversation. The extreme form of this is to “turn your back on someone,” that is, refuse to offer help or solace.

It occurred to me in thinking about this (and yes this is going on way too long) that the absolutes (back to back and face to face) are easy to figure out but what about all the angles in between. Someone standing with their shoulders at a 90 degree angle to you would be neutral, I guess. If he or she turns away from you, the increasing angle of awayness would correspond to their increasing lack of interest in you, and if they turn toward you the angle of the towardness would correspond to their increasing interest in you.

We are pretty good at intuiting such body language for ourselves, but it would be helpful (and potentially lucrative) one would think to have the equivalent of the Angle-Dangle Meter, which measures the angle of celestial objects or high places–how much the Big Ben clock tower is leaning for instance (and if you were thinking of other things, shame on you…or not), for SPSFA.

Such an instrument would let us know exactly where we stand whenever we are standing next to someone. The first name for this device that comes to mind is the Standometer but I’m not sure that captures the function and value of the information conveyed. Then there is the more scientific but not very catchy Proxometer. No, the marketing way to go seems to be with temperature, as in “giving someone the cold shoulder.” The shoulder angle would be interpreted in terms of how warm or cold the person in question feels toward you, with readings that range from “Glacial” to “Volcanic.” I’m thinking “Attractometer” or “Likometer” (pronounced “attract ometer” and “like ometer” as in thermometer). This will be an app, of course, for all Apple and Android devices. Now if I can just get the Ponds Institute to do the testing and vouch for the product I will be all set to be, as my favorite politicoshamster would say, “rich, very very rich.” What more could one ask for?

* An old man with his much younger “trophy wife.” The fact that she has slipped her hand inside his purse leaves no doubt as to the basis of this relationship. “Cranach Ill-matched couple” by Lucas Cranach the Elder – Own work (BurgererSF). Licensed under Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons.

Visit Kim Pederson’s blog RatBlurt: Mostly Random Short-Attention-Span Musings.