Peripersonal Space: Humans’ Got Talent

The space around you that you can reach with your arms is a very special place. It’s where we interact with reality. And although we are so good at using it we don’t give it a second thought, our ability to use it is one our most amazing abilities.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of I
Heart Radio. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh,
and there's Chuck and Jerry's here too, and that's the
podcast that they call Stuff You Should Know. Big sound

(00:22):
any different? You sound exactly the same? Do I Really?
That's good because I just got the stints out from
having my deviated septoms fixed once and for all. Dude,
what's it like, what's the reveal? Well, the big reveal
is that my voice didn't change, which is something I
was actually really worried about. Yeah, yeah, because I mean, like, um,

(00:43):
that's what I used as my job when I was like, well,
you know, if I've got like my septum pressed all
the way up against one side of my face, how
does that make my voice sound, and what will it
sound like with you know out that happening. But I
can breathe through both nostrils for the first time in memory.
I I literally can't remember the last time. I think
I'm probably was sixth grade. Again. My friend saw me

(01:05):
punched me in the face, and I'm almost positive that's
that's the only thing I can come up with that
would have deviated my septem But I've been in such
a good mood since those stints got pulled out. Man,
I'm I'm just on air, dude. I love it. So
happy to hear that. Thank you. I bet those stints
being in there was not fun. No, it wasn't. In

(01:26):
um My doctor guy named Capelle Segal was really really good,
as was Alicia the p A too, and he said
that he was I don't think he said it was
the most deviated septum ever, but I'm just gonna go
ahead and say that's essentially what he was saying, that
it was really really deviated septem and so he got

(01:46):
it straight and everything's going bully right now. Did you
shave any off any anywhere here and there? No, he said,
you know that bump is still going to be there, right,
We're not doing a rhino plastic And I was like, yeah,
I've made peace with my nose is fine nose. So
he's like, great, okay, I love it. I can't wait.
I can't wait to breathe my breath into your nostrils
and have you. I can't accept it for the first time. Here,

(02:09):
do it now, and we'll see if I can smell
it over the microphone. Mom, Yeah, that's nice, Chuck, it
smells like seagulls. Uh, it's funny. People listening to this
might be thinking, why did Chuck almost shout the word
big at the beginning of this episode. Oh yeah, because
I was going to say big, props and thanks to

(02:32):
you for picking this subject. Okay, great, because I thought
I thought it was endlessly fascinating and had so many
potential little ten drils that weren't even in the great
thing that Livia put together for us. Uh. It just
it really got my brain kind of thinking about a
lot of different ways that pair of personal space and

(02:55):
how our brains are wired, and how that how many
things that has impacted in will impact and can't impact.
I loved it. Yeah, it is that's I mean, that's
why I was like, we gotta do one on this.
I don't remember how I stumbled across. I think I
actually was like, I remember hearing that every human needs
like one point seven meters square meters of personal space
or something, or actual physical space, and I was like,

(03:18):
is that true? And I went and looked it up
and I stumbled upon pair of personal space, which is different.
There's personal space, there's pair of personal space. And this
this science even though we've been like kind of picking
at the edges of it since the seventies. UM, it's
still so new that we're not quite sure if we're
talking about the same thing or these overlapping systems. But

(03:39):
the upshot of a pair of personal space while we're
talking about is the area around you that you can reach,
like as far as your arm extends, and that if
you stop and think about it, this is the way
that we physically interact with the world. This is the
space and it changes because we move around the world.
We sit down, we stand up, we hands, we just

(04:01):
we do stuff, so it moves with us. It's locked
into our body, but it is it's the space where
where we interface with reality essentially UM in any physical way. Yeah,
and it's UM. And by the way, Teaser, there are
two other kinds of spaces that you didn't even mention
that we're going to talk about. Okay, so just you know,

(04:24):
put that under your lid. Let's smoke listening, audience. Uh.
It's sort of related to what's called body schema, and
we'll talk about sort of the history and all this
and all these cool studies, but body schema is just
the understanding that we have of how we're built. Like
you know, Uh, it's like if you put on one
of those big sumo wrestling suits, you're gonna be knocking

(04:48):
stuff over, like Nathan for you episode in a China
in a China shop. Um, because you're your your brain
is wired to be used to how big you are. Uh,
Like when we squeeze through a sideways thing, like we know,
like I've got to turn sideways when I get to
this thing because I know how big I am and

(05:09):
I know how wide I am, And like, you can't
overstate the massive importance this had evolutionarily speaking, I think,
because that relates to everything from along with pps pair
of personal space, everything from like can I reach from
this limb out to get that piece of fruit without

(05:31):
falling and killing myself too? Can I use this club
and we'll get into some really interesting stuff about extensions
of your own space. Can I use this club to
hit that guy before he gets to me? All of
this stuff matter, Like even fruit flies have a version
of body schema, which is can I make it from

(05:51):
here to there? Essentially with my little fruit fly body?
Can I get through that gap? Is it too small? Um?
As that. Yeah, that reveals that body schema is a
really really ancient um mechanism. It's a really ancient system
among life, right that if you stop and think about it,
anything that moves through the world probably has some form

(06:14):
of body schema because otherwise they'd be running into stuff,
they would be um, they wouldn't be able to feed themselves,
they would miss the prey that they were running after. UM.
It would like it's really basically impossible to overstate how
constantly we use these this this um process, and how

(06:36):
constant it's updated. And the most remarkable thing about it
is we do all this without even giving it a thought.
It just happens. And it's not just body schema we're
talking about. And this is where we kind of get
into um what I was talking about earlier that we're
still not quite sure is is body scheme up part
of it? Are we talking about body schema? We're just

(06:57):
accidentally using a different a different term, Like that's where
the field is right now, But like neurology has definitely
taken up a pair of personal space and is investigating
it with full gusto. So it probably won't be too
terribly long before we understand it much more and have
like a much more precise definition that all of the

(07:17):
scientific community agrees on. Yeah, and you know that's basically
where we're studying here and talking about today is neurology.
Because it's very easy to say, well, of course, you know,
you can't squeeze through a certain area if it's too
small for your body. But it's not instinct. It is
neurons firing on an unconscious level that is telling you
to do or to not attempt this thing. Basically, it's

(07:40):
very cool. Yeah, and again it's it's a It's how
we do just about everything with our bodies, like from dancing, um,
playing sports, um, making a crewdriver, making love, um, what
some people called doing it. Um. How if somebody shoots
an arrow at your face and you catch the arrow

(08:00):
right before it hits your face without even thinking about it.
It's how we catch flies out of the air with chopsticks.
Anything that we do physically moving has to do with this.
And again it has to do with how incredibly advanced
our brains are. That's what we're finding out. That's what
this this whole thing reveals, is this thing that we've

(08:23):
just taken for granted, we finally reached the point in
our like understanding of the universe and us and how
things work, um, sorry, how stuff works, um, that we're
now investigating things that we've just totally taken for granted.
And what we're finding is like, oh my god, our
brains are so ridiculously powerful that it's this is just

(08:44):
fun to even talk about. And that's why we're talking
about it today. A couple of the first neurologists to
sort of start poking around this, uh pair of personal
space was in nineteen eleven, uh do name, Henry Head
good name, as Libya points out, and Gordon Holmes put
out a paper um that talked about body schema, and
they were looking at it in terms of like people

(09:06):
that had brain damage. They noticed that certain kinds of
brain damage would render odd ways that they might position
a limb, or that they might have a sensation and
a limb or something like that. So that's how they
kind of, uh started kind of launched the field of
studying this body scheme of thing neurologically speaking. And they

(09:28):
also and this is super cool, this is just one
of like a million cool things. They're the first ones
that came up with this idea that if if something
is attached to your body in a way that it's
moving with your body, then your brain accepts that neurologically
and factors that in. So if you're wearing a tin
gallon hat, uh, You're you're gonna duck a little more

(09:49):
readily because you know you're wearing that hat unless you know,
unless you're just really dense and you just keep knocking
that hat off. But eventually you're not going to be
a cartoon character and you're going to realize this large
hat or this whatever I'm wearing. Like and I remember,
I think I've talked about it before and college. One
of the greatest h Halloween costumes ever saw in downtown

(10:11):
Athens was Uh. I kind of knew him. His name
was Blake, but he was Surface Area man one year
and he just had these huge foam disks that he
made a suit out of around his arms and legs
in his body that he took up like, you know,
maybe fifteen square feet and he would just walk around
Athens bumping into things saying, I'm surface area man. But

(10:33):
it's it sort of ties in with this and that. Uh.
He went against the idea like neurologically speaking, he would
have known he can't go into the bar and not
knock people over. And I'm sure he did know this,
it was part of the gag. But uh, if it's
attached to you and moves with you, your brain factors
at in. Yeah, Like if you stop and think about

(10:54):
that for a second, your body schema, if you put
a hat on your body schema enlarges and changes shape
to include that hat. Now, that's astounding. That's an amazing
thing that we just again don't even think about. So
Head and Homes were the ones who were really first
kind of bringing this up, like, hey, guys, we're taking
some stuff for granted, we need to investigate this. And

(11:17):
it was followed up in UM by W. R. Brain,
another neurologists UM, and he said, hey, you know what
we kind of think of space around us is like, um,
you know this, the door is just three ft in
front of me, or the ceiling is a six ft ceiling,

(11:38):
And we think of it in Cartesian terms like things
can be mapped out as if on a graph. And
he said that's not actually how our brain encoades things.
It encoades things much more simply basically what's in grasping
distance and what's in walking distance. And he kind of
prefigured all the way back in one this idea of
pair of personal space grasping distance, and then other types

(12:01):
of space. And it seems to be the case that
that is kind of how our brain divides things. And
it's not binary like that. It's not like a straight
line like either it's in walking distance or it's in
grasping distance. There's gradients of it. But he he was
pretty smart for having come up with this kind of
seeing things differently. Yeah, and there were there were a
couple of philosophers. Uh, I'm sure many people have put

(12:23):
this forward, but uh common Kline and Frederick they Vanimon
uh kind of throw out that, Hey, I think this
evolved originally out of self defense, and that makes a
lot of sense. I think even though we're so far
removed from took took In and our ancestors like that, Uh,

(12:44):
I think many people still in a place where they
maybe even not feel threatened, maybe even when they're sitting
in their own living room. No, like all right, the
fire pokers, you know, within grasping distance, just in case
some and bust in that door. Yeah, Like I remember
being a kid and like and I wasn't a paranoid

(13:06):
worried kid at all, but I used to go into
places and all, right, where's where's the defense weapon? Like
in this room? What would I grab if some maybe
I was a paranoid where he could Now, Yeah, I
was gonna say I walk into the room and be like,
where's the cookies? I would think I could throw the
cookie jar at someone's head? But I think that's the

(13:26):
evolutionary sort of remnant still sticking around, which is like,
what can I grasp to defend myself? And your brain
is sort of wired that way. Uh, not only with us,
but you know animals they found out kind of do
the same thing, right, Yeah, and like that we that
we would have taken this initial thing that's self defense.

(13:47):
So there's a bubble of of like protection around us
that when something starts to come into it, we're like, okay,
alarms are going off. And that over time our brain
was like, we can do a lot more with this.
Let's figure out unique and novel ways, and that that
eventually evolved into being able to grasp the hot poker.
And they point out the two philosophers you mentioned that
um it's not an adaptation. That's called an exaptation. And

(14:10):
we talked about it in a Human Intelligence episode UM,
where the ability to remember where you set your baby
down on that rock eventually evolved into wayfinding, like our
ability to create mental maps and find our way around
or find our way back from something. But yeah, you
said something about the animals, and there was a Swiss

(14:30):
zoo director. I'm just gonna take his name. Okay, I'm
usually pretty generous, but I want to take this one. Okay,
heine Headagar. It's pretty straightforward. It's a great name. Heinie Hedagar,
Swiss Zoo director UM started studying animals because he wanted
to figure out at what like, how can you put
animals into the same enclosure but they're from different species

(14:52):
without scaring one another to death? And so he started
studying how close you could get the animals and came
up with this whole um kind of con tribution to
the eventual pair of personal understanding of space. That's right.
So what happened was Heinie Hettegar. You gotta say both names.
It's really hard not to, uh said. I want to
figure out a few different things. I want to figure

(15:14):
out um, how far like a predator species can be
from a prey before uh, we'll call it the flight
distance before one of the prey runs away or maybe
fights back. We'll call that the defense distance or plays dead.
That's critical distance. And found out that there was just

(15:35):
a lot of consistency among different individuals within a species,
which a was interesting, but also created the definition of
what a tame animal is, which is kind of cool.
Which is a flight distance of zero when it comes
to humans. So you can go up and pet, pet
that thing, basically give it a scritch again, and and
heinie hettagar um. You can kind of take him and

(15:57):
set him to the side for a little bit. Because
his findings really kind of come to pass in proxemics,
which is the personal spaces most people understand it um,
which eventually, you know, we'll talk about overlaps with pair
of personal space, but but pair of personal spaces we
understand it today was termed I think around and there's

(16:18):
gonna be a lot of Chuck's Italian imitations because the Italians,
really they did a lot of studying of para personal space.
I don't know, I don't know, but they just they
just are into that kind of thing. But from the
seventies to the nineties there was a lot of sad
monkey experiments. Um so said, I'm like, when are we

(16:39):
going to stop doing that? We have to figure out
a different way because it's just so ghastly if you
stop and think about what they're doing through these poor monkeys. Um.
But essentially what they figured out is, yeah, w R
brain was right. Our brains basically say that's near, that's far,
And yes, there's you know, variations on the theme, but

(17:00):
essentially that's how we see the world. And the stuff
that's near is the really hot action stuff because that's
the stuff we can interact with. Right. But also there
was an Italian UH neuro physiologist name do you say
Giacomo or Jacomo? Oh? I don't know, I'm gonna say Giacomo, Okay,

(17:22):
Giacomo riz A Latti um basically found out that as
far as the neurons of this macaque monkey goes, and
as sensibly humans obviously that's why they're studying these monkeys
to begin with, uh, their neurons would fire if the
monkey was touched, like literally touched on the skin, or

(17:44):
the same thing would happen if a flash of light
went off near its body. So it you know, we're
talking about pair of personal space versus extra personal space.
That was one of the two types that we didn't
mention extra personalist out of your reach grasp, right, yes,
So basically found out that certain neurons react to that

(18:04):
extra personal space exclusively visually. But when it came to
these pair of personal neurons, they were responding to both
tactile or visual stimulus in the same way. Right, So
as long as something was happening in this in this
pair of personal space, that neuron could be stimulated by
different kinds of input. Right. That's right, That's that's kinda

(18:26):
that's gonna become big in a second. Um. There's another
researcher named Michael Graziano, Chuck Graziana. Actually he's Americans, all bet,
it's just Michael Graziano. UM. And he studied macaques too
with electrical currents, and this one, this is the one
that gets me. He implanted electrodes into these neurons that

(18:47):
m Risolotti had discovered, UM, and said, what happens if
I like stimulate this, And when he stimulated the neurons
that were activated within the peri personal space, the monkeys
would like flinch, they would like throw their hands up
defensively in front of their faces. Um, they would they
would respond like there was a predator that was about

(19:10):
to attack them, like it had just invaded their pair
of personal space, or as Henny Heideger would say, their
um defense distance, right, yeah, which I mean that leads
to the you know, that really backs up the whole
original defense mechanism thing right exactly. Um that that that's
probably what it evolved from. And then when he did
the opposite, if he if he prevented those neurons for firing,

(19:32):
he could get as close as you wanted and the
monkey wouldn't flinch, essentially all right. And then nineties seven
rise a lotty. I believe this is where the first
sort of big book around this came out. He and
his colleagues put out a book called The Space Around Us,
where they basically gathered up, you know, a couple of
decades worth of research and said here's what we've got
so far. Right. One of the big things that they

(19:54):
said in that was that, hey, what we thought before
is that there's all this different sensories information coming in
tactile information audio, visual, all that stuff, and the brain
is kind of bringing it all together and analyzing it
and then telling the motor nerves what to do to respond.
That's not right. It turns out that there are neurons

(20:16):
that can be stimulated by by visual input, by tactile input,
by audio input, the same neuron it will respond. The
point isn't what kind of stimulus it is, it's where
it's happening. So like, if something's happening in the pair
of personal space, a neuron that's responsible for the pair
of personal space around your right elbow, if you see

(20:39):
something around your right elbow coming at it, like an arrow,
or if an arrow is actually touching now your elbow,
that same neuron is going to fire in just the
same way. Um. That that was a big thing. It's
not stimulus specific, it's location specific. And so that kind
of changed our entire understanding of how the brain kind

(21:01):
of processes all this stuff. It's it's um Rather than
redundancy having all these different regions taking in stuff and
then I put it together, it's you know, specific neurons
are are dedicated to specific regions no matter how that
that sensory input is coming in well, and even in
the cool little Cherry on this Sunday was they also
found out that it's not just where something is located,

(21:24):
but their neurons start firing on, you know, if it's
a bow and arrow or a rake, or a club
or a baseball bat or a coffee cup. Your your
brains fires on like how you're going to physically engage
with that thing because of its locate, you know, and
and coordination with its physical location. So that comes up

(21:45):
a little bit later at the end with the mirror
neurons experiment. Uh, and maybe we'll just say that that
will be a nice little teaser, Okay. Cool. Another thing
that they figured out to um, I'm not sure what
the year was, but Andreas Areno at the MySpace Lab
pretty great name. Um. She found out that the size

(22:06):
of your PPS varies depending on what part of the
body is being studied. So, um, it's different sizes around
that your torso or your face or your hands. And
what I found just monumentally astounding, Chuck, is that the
size of your PPS altars size and shape. I believe
as you bring one PPS area into another PPS area,

(22:31):
so like your face comes up or your hand comes
to touch your face, and they think that this is
to prevent your hand from getting captured by your PPS,
your faces pair of personal space, and then who knows
what sort of crazy cognitive sensation that would create. So
you actually there's a mechanism to prevent that from happening,

(22:52):
to prevent your hands PPS from merging accidentally with your
faces PPS. Right. But one thing that they kind of
got wrong that they realized later on, and I think, Uh,
this paper came out just a few years ago. In
was that Uh, And I believe let's shout out who
it was researchers Rory Uh, Buffacci, Man, what is going

(23:16):
on here? I love it? Rory doesn't doesn't make you do?
You're not expecting Buffon, Rory J. Buffacci and gian Domenico Ionetti. Um.
They put forth the argument that it's like, it's not
like a switch though it's a it's a sort of
like a a gradient range basically based on the distance

(23:38):
something is from you. So it's not like is it
within my grasping distance or is it not? Neurons can
fire if it like it might be like if they
move something a little bit closer, the way your neurons
fire change. Yeah, They've also found that it depends on
if the thing is moving or if it's stationary, and
if it's moving, isn't moving towards you as am moving away?

(24:00):
Like there are a lot of nuance to it, rather
than it's either in my extra personal space or it's
in my pair of personal space, which was kind of
like the the general model for years or finding like, no,
it's it's much more nuanced than that. Um So, Chuck,
I we just realized off camera, off Mike, we have

(24:22):
not we haven't taken a break yet. Now. See this
is so fascinating. It's like we're having a good old
fashioned conversation. Okay, well, let's let's take that break now
then and come back. Okay, yeah, like people do in
good old fashioned conversations. All right, so we're back. Uh.

(25:04):
I know everyone else takes add breaks when they have
great conversations with people. So that's what we did. Sure,
Uh where are we now? We are? We had tools?
Can we talk about tools? Yeah? This is where it
really starts to get mind blowing. Yeah, this is super
cool because not only does your pair of personal space
change automatically if you wear a tin gallon hat, but

(25:27):
your pair of personal space will change according to what
kind of tool you're using. Yeah, and this is sort
of what I was talking about with Took. Took all
of a sudden has a as a four ft club
in his hand, and he now knows that that uh,
that animal he wants to kill or that person coming
at him, that the neurons are firing basically as if

(25:49):
his arm is three and a half feet longer. Yes,
it includes that. And this I think is just like
if you just think about the development of weapons over
the years, you and weapons, I think, well, I mean
some of this stuff was actually in our book on
the chapter on the first gun, but it really I
don't know, it never occurred to me that all weapons

(26:10):
development since the beginning of time has just been to
get further and further away from your enemy. Oh yeah,
that's a good point. Like you have a club that
you can hit some with or a sword, and then
you're backing up a little bit more and your pair
of personal space is automatically reading this in. But I'm
curious about like when you start shooting arrows and then
guns and then eventually long range missiles, like neurologically speaking,

(26:35):
what that does you know? Right? Um? But also with tools,
not just weapons, but any like the fact that you
can use a screwdriver, um or hit a baseball with
a bat. It's not about sometimes I'm like co on,
let's chill out, Chuck, let's get a more Richard scary
than actually scary. Um. So. Uh. The fact that you

(26:56):
can use a screwdriver is not because your hand is
pres cisely guiding that screwdriver. It seems to be because
the pair of personal space of your hand is now
being extended to the tip of that screwdriver. So it's
almost like if you could turn screws with your finger.
You're doing something very similar as far as your neurons
are concerned, because they've now adopted the screwdriver as part

(27:19):
of your hand and extended your pair of personal space
around it. So your body schema has now adjusted and
you look like you have an extra finger that's really
thin and really long. Uh. There's a really cool study
again in Italy. Uh in two thousand, uh Anna Berti
and Francisa Fressinetti looked at a woman who had a

(27:40):
stroke on the right hemisphere of her brain and they
did these experiments to you know, these near and far
space experiments to see how her neurons fired when like
reaching for something with a hand or reaching for something
not really reaching, but using a laser pointer to you know,
extend your extra personal space really far out there. Uh.

(28:04):
And I believe when she was asked to find the
midpoint of a line within her pair of personal space,
like with her finger, maybe she put the mark really
far to the right because the right hemisphere of her
brain had been damaged through the stroke. She was asked
to do the same thing with this laser and she
did a really much better job. And then they gave

(28:25):
her a stick, And I believe that she used the
stick and did uh, worse than the laser, right, but
better than her finger. Yeah, because her brain didn't adopt
the laser dot as part of her body schema, but
it did adopt the stick, so constantly remapping basically. Yeah.

(28:45):
But it also showed that the brain treats these two
places very much differently that they're they're they're not the
same as far as the brain is concerned. And it
also showed that when you use a stick over a
laser point in your brain is treating that stick like
a tool. It was just really good early evidence that, Yeah,
we definitely change our body scheme and to adopt tools
when we use them. Yeah, and it sort of made

(29:08):
me think about along with this next study, this was
UM not in Italy actually, this is in Japan around
two thousand, where they took monkeys again and they gave
them rakes, uh to see if they would treat a
rake like an extension of their body neurologically speaking, and
they did. They could get food that was you know,
further away just using that rake, but they also were

(29:30):
able to use a video monitor. These monkeys would to
see an area where there would be food that they
couldn't see without looking at the video monitor, and they
looked at this monitor basically to see where this food
was hidden. And they still use this rake as an extension.
Like it made me think of sort of like a

(29:50):
surgeon using robotics basically the same thing must be happening
in their brain when they're looking at a video screen
and operating an extension of their you know, scalpel. Yeah.
I think more more recent tests UM using virtual reality
headsets have found like that. Yeah, you like, that's exactly
what's going on your You can adopt something on a

(30:12):
video screen your brain can and be like this is
what this is part of my body schema for the moment.
And what I thought was even more interesting, or at
least as interesting, is that the same researchers found that, um,
when the monkeys were just holding the rake, their their
pair of personal space just shrunk back down to normal.
But when they were yes and if they were using

(30:34):
as a tool, then the pair of personal space extended
around it. So it has to do with like what
I can't remember. One of the researchers was saying, like,
we interact with the world and objects, and we retreat
objects based on what we can or can't or plan
to do with those things when we interact with them
in pair of personal space. And all of that, by
the way, was in Japanese researchers at Sushi Riki's lab

(31:00):
with an Italian flare. It's got to be for this episode.
The same thing happens. Like when you're in a car,
if you're driving a small car as opposed to driving
like a big box truck, your your neurons are gonna
fire differently because you know, you know, you're constantly trying
to figure out if you can squeeze in through a
space with a larger vehicle. Dude, the very fact that

(31:22):
we can drive a car is because of a pair
of personal space. Can you imagine like we could conceivably
still drive, um it just knowing like if I turned
the wheel this way or turn them um, But it
would be the most harrowing experience. No one would drive.
It would be so scary to drive because we we

(31:43):
the reason why it's not as scary as we have.
We've extended our pair of personal space to our car. Now.
It's nuts what our brains are willing to do when
we throw technology at them. Well, and you know I've
mentioned before when I drove in Australia opposite z steering wheel,
opposite side of the road, I had to really concentrate,

(32:04):
very very hard because you were so wired to just
being in a car and driving and making turns in
a certain way. Uh. It really shook shook me up.
And I think stimulated. Uh I say stimulated me And
it sounds dirty all of a sudden, I'm driving around
Australia in a in an excited state, but that was

(32:25):
but it stimulated my brain. I just felt more. I
felt so alive. Yeah with you, Yeah, because you zone
out so easily when you drive. Sometimes when you're just
taking off for granted driven that yeah, it is dangerous. Um.
There was one other thing I saw that I thought
was just astounding about this. Um. It seems that your
pair of personal space can basically merge with another person's

(32:48):
under certain conditions to where you're doing, um, synchronized motions
and movements that require coming into contact with one another,
like synchronoz swimming. Let's say no, no, because you're not
actually touching. This would be more like a bucket brigade,
or if you're doing a baton run and you're handing
off a baton at that moment when the baton is

(33:09):
being passed, that it's being manipulated. It's a part of
two different people's pair of personal space at the same time,
so you are connected to that person via a pair
of personal space through the baton. Are you do people
touch in senor nice swimming? I don't think I think
you get disqualified for that. It's frowned on. Oh no,
I thought you're saying they did touch. No, no, I'm

(33:31):
saying not not synchronized swimming because they don't touch. Okay,
Oh man, I'm just confused now. Do they touch or not.
They do not talk. They just swim around near each
other in the same pattern. Right. Although I have a
great story, Um, it's not synchronized swimming. But I was
on a swimming team when I was a younger kid,
and I was terrible, terrible. I now realized that the
coaches put me in just for fun, just just to

(33:54):
get their their kicks watching me swim terribly. And um,
one of the reasons why I know that is because
they put me in a backstroke and I was the
worst backstroke swimmer ever. Um, because I would cross at
least one lane if not to and bump into another
swimmer and we'd both be so surprised we'd stop and
stand up, and I would accidentally disqualify both of us

(34:16):
because if you stand up in the pool, if your
feet touch the bottom, you're disqualified. So that was in
that case. It wasn't synchronized swimming, but we were touching.
Young Josh being like, why would anyone swim backwards so
dumb you can't see anything. Just let me do the breaststroke.
I can do that. Or you developed the first backstroke

(34:38):
rear view mirror that just like sits on your chest Uh,
so maybe we should talk a little bit about some
of the other cool findings, like uh they have found that, um,
it's not just tools, but like anxiety and your mood
can change your pair of personal space whether or not

(35:00):
you're interacting with someone from a different culture can uh.
They have found that, you know, if if you're interacting
with someone from a different culture, generally, UM you might
not feel as comfortable with them being close to you
as you would someone from your own culture, which explains
a lot. It definitely does. UM. They also found that

(35:20):
spinal injuries can reduce the size of the um pps
if the person is lost the ability to control their
limb um and they you can actually simulate this if
you have ten hours to kill UM. You can just
keep your leg immobilized for ten hours and it will
temporarily shrink your personal space around your leg because your

(35:41):
brain is basically like, oh, I guess that legs not
in use any longer. Yeah, well, if you're pregnant, you're
gonna grow that PPS because all of a sudden you
have a a basketball under your shirt. So it's you know,
people think that was obviously probably in a luctionary um
protection measure to protect that baby in the belly. People

(36:06):
take a wider berth around people they deem important or
high status or celebrity or famous or whatever. Uh. And
it's not them saying, hey, I need space. It's it's
you regarding their status and instinctively not going as close
to them. No, that's true, but you're increasing your space. Um,

(36:31):
because you're I guess, kind of anxious around them. Yeah,
it's very interesting. Um, one that I saw that explains
a lot. I hadn't really thought about it. Um, it's claustrophobia.
People who have claustrophobia have bigger pair of personal spaces.
So it's like, if you're stuffed into a like a
I don't know, drainage culvert or something that's narrower than

(36:53):
your pair of personal spaces by a lot, you could
have claustrophobia. I think that's fascinating. Or I'll give you
a different example. If you're kidnapped and put into a
coffin and buried alive, you may feel claustrophobic because your
pair of personal spaces being violated. We uh got pivoted
away from Florida because of the hurricane for fall break,

(37:14):
and so we went to last minute trip to Chattanooga, Tennessee.
And this sort of stuff is all in play if
you're doing Rock City and Ruby Falls, because in Ruby
Falls you're either ducking or avoiding things, or in Rock
City there are quite a few places where you're squeezing
through tight areas, uh and also ducking. So I wish

(37:36):
i'd I mean, it's not like I was running into
things because I have my neurons are working fine. But um,
if you have claustrophobia, imagine you have a hard time
with places like that, or any sort of neurological condition
that affects your PPS, than those places are not gonna
be great for you. Yeah, we had a good talk, man. Yeah,
I was gonna say there aren't that many roadside attractions

(37:58):
from the thirties that still hold up to day, but
those two definitely do. Both very cool. Um, Chuck, I
say that we take a break and come back and
talk about personal space as most people understand it. How
about that let's do it so like I was saying

(38:39):
personal spaces as most people think of it, as like, Um,
you're making me a little nervous, you're a little close
talking to me or whatever. Who wasn't judge Reinhold the
close talker and signfld um. That's called prox semics, and
that got its name from an anthropologist, actually, a guy
named Edward Hall back in ninety six. And I don't
know if he adapted Heinie heddagers um distances that he

(39:03):
came up with for animals or if it was just
like he made the same observations and came up with
different labels, but he basically replicated headagers thing for the
swing in sixties instead. Yeah, and you know, when it
comes to proximics in personal space, obviously all of this
depends on who it is. Like they don't do studies

(39:25):
on like if your if your boyfriend or girlfriend walks
into the room, like you know, all those rules are
kind of thrown out the window. They're talking about like,
you know, strangers who don't know each other generally. And
the way they might research this is having a participant
like stand there and have a um, you know, control
walk into the room and say, hey, you just tell

(39:48):
me when to stop, like right when you start feeling
uncomfortable to how close I am, tell me when to stop,
shout stop stop, Which this is gonna very wildly among people,
I think, uh in general, but I think they did
find some commonalities among cultures when it comes to comfort distances. Uh,

(40:10):
they're they're like I said, some people are gonna have
their own uh uh like really good reasons, personal hang ups. Uh,
some people have neurological conditions that are gonna kind of
factor in. But if you're just generally talking about a
person and a culture, they have found that. Weirdly, I
was surprised that Americans are about average with um, what

(40:33):
do they call it, like average physical proximity. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
We're we're a little more than average ly comfortable with
that kind of that. Just it feels like Americans are
more prone than other cultures to be like, hey, like
do you mind backing off a little bit? Yeah, But
it makes sense. And there was a guy um who
suggested I think it actually might have been Edward Hall

(40:56):
who suggested that, um, different cities in different countries are
laid out differently based on the personal space that that
culture has, And it would make sense. In America, we're
all about wide open spaces and don't fence me in
and all that stuff. So I could totally see that
being you know, American compared to like a European city

(41:17):
where buildings are just built on top of buildings. There's
little narrow alleyways that lead to charming bookshops and stuff
like that. I I could see that totally based on
personal space, that that culture values without anyone having any
idea that's what's doing. Yeah, And I had to you know,
I value my personal space and I had when I
lived in l A. I had to reckon with um

(41:39):
realizing that like, hey, in a town like Los Angeles,
a melting pot like that, people are coming from all
over the world and you're gonna be shopping, uh in
close proximity to them and rubbing elbows and there lived
experienced wherever they came from. It's different than your bub
and so like you can't you know, if if someone

(42:02):
grew up in India and uh, like I'm trying to
picture like a really crowded bazare or something where people
are like packed in and trying to order things like,
that's a whole different experience than growing up in the
Southeast in a in a big, huge grocery store. And
so if someone creeps up on you a little bit,

(42:22):
you gotta keep that in mind as an American, and
I can see you laying there thinking that with your
elbows out to the side, your hands behind your head,
and then your brain says, Okay, now get up and
go squeeze some orange shoes because it's gonna be a
beautiful day. I did have a little bit of I
try to be understanding, but I got a little salty
a couple of times in chatt a new personal space

(42:43):
really well. But the little statue elves my personal philosophy
is is if I can't like reach behind myself and
get like my wallet out of my pocket without elbowing someone, sure,
that's way too close. Then you're too close. Especially in
these days, that person is used an r F I
D skimmer on you if they're that close to your wallet.

(43:04):
Also had a kid behind me that was doing that,
like let's let's kick the guy's feet when he walks
and laugh about it with his brother, and I was like,
all right, they were kicking your feet. Yeah, yeah, one
of the kids was kicking his feet and I heard
him laughing to his brother and I was like, all right,
just stay cool, chuck. This is a kid. Your kid
annoys people too. And then the mom I didn't even

(43:26):
have to like give a dirty look. The mom was
on it and was like, you need to back off
of that guy, and I was like, oh, it's fine,
but yeah, right, Oh, I hadn't even noticed anyway, A
long way of saying that people come from different cultures
where they have different levels of comfort with what Edward
Hall called um intimate distance, which is hugging which is great,

(43:52):
or whispering in someone's ear, which is the worst possible thing,
putting your tongue in someone's here, Uh, that could be nice.
Um personal distance, which is comfortable with close friends but
not acquaintances. Social distance, which is like the water cooler
chat six ft, yes, six ft, or what they call
public distance, what he called public distance, and that's I

(44:13):
guess when you're like on a stage projecting and guesturing
largely and stuff like that. Yes, And it really does
remarkably resemble Heinie Hettagar's um separation of zones for for
animals species and that makes sense because we're still animals too,
And so it seems like what the differences between personal

(44:35):
space and para personal space and physically they overlap a lot,
is that And this is just me editorializing, but I
think personal space is that original defensive zone that evolved
that animals have that Heinie Hettagar turned up, um, that
we still have again because we're animals, and that para

(44:55):
personal space is that acceptation that came out of that
personal space defensive zone and and that allows us to
interact with the environment and all sorts of new and
amazing and interesting ways. Yeah. I like that. Physically they
occupy the same space, but mentally, um, neurologically they're they're distinct. Yeah.

(45:18):
Super fascinating. Uh, I guess we can finish up on
the return of mirror neurons. Yeah, totally very excited. I
feel like we used to talk about mirror neurons a lot,
but we had I believe, a complete episode on them, right,
and then talked about them a lot. But it's sort
of the idea and this is a reductive way of
looking at it, But like seeing a football player break

(45:40):
their leg on the TV screen might send a weird
pain sensation through your own leg or but it's the
opposite side, and that what they figured out. I don't know,
I'm not sure, but who was it? Willis mcgahey, Uh,
the Miami Hurricane guy who's knee all the way backwards.

(46:01):
So I don't know. I was thinking thisman, there's been
so many bad sort of incidences over the year, But
this is the idea that you're these are mirror neurons
and they're picking up what has happened to someone else
and like literally physically affecting you in your body. Yeah.
And one of the reasons that this would relate to
pair of personal spaces, they think that mirror neurons help

(46:23):
us basically create a mental construct of what we're going
to do with our body with our hands by watching
someone else doing it. And they say, well, this is
obviously how like stone toolmaking was passed down from generation
to generation because we had the ability to watch someone

(46:44):
else do something and then do it ourselves because of
this body schema and um mirror neurons, which are probably
very much inter related to the point where mirror neurons
and the pair of personal space or body schema neurons
are one and the same in some cases. Yeah. And
they did a study again with the monkeys. Uh, and

(47:05):
this had to do with kind of what I mentioned
at the beginning about whether or not you're going to
interact with something, where they watched monkeys watching a human
grab an object. So the monkeys just watching a person like,
let's they grab an apple, and about a quarter of
the mirror neurons and these monkeys fired more rapidly if

(47:25):
the person grabbing the apple was just simply closer to
the monkey. So, in other words, all of a sudden,
the monkey says, all right, I might have be interacting
with this thing. So different neurons are lighting up. And
when they put up a barrier, and it was a
clear barrier, this is what confused me a little bit.
They put up a clear barrier between the person and

(47:46):
the monkey, and it actually did reduce those neurons lighting
up just because there was a barrier there. But it
was was the monkey, I guess aware of the barrier.
It had to be yeah, okay, yeah, but it could
still see what they was doing. But it had shut
down the possibility to the monkey's brain that it would
be interacting with the apple. So a different, a different

(48:08):
experience happened in the monkey's brain because it wasn't trying
to interact with it wasn't going to interact with the apple.
Super cool, very cool, me too, man, pair of personal space.
I'm glad we did one on it. Um, you got
anything else right now? No, just if you see me out,
give me a little room. Yeah, for sure. Don't kick
Chuck's feet. It's weird though, because I do like a

(48:30):
good hug, but like someone whispering to me, and I
think I have like childhood triggers for that for certain
reasons I won't get into. But like anybody whispering and
my daughter whispering in my ear, I just can't handle.
I cannot handle a whisper in my ear. I'm not
sure I knew that. Man. Well, I don't mind your whisper.
You're kind of the only one. Okay, how's gonna say?

(48:51):
I feel like the sweet Nothings really do it for me. Yeah,
that Harvey's bombing episode was so good. Job. See, I
don't mind hearing a whisper. It's got to be in
my ear. Yeah, I understand that. I mean probably because
it's not just um audio, it's tactile to the air
pushing on your ear drum. Because I don't think we

(49:12):
mentioned the final fourth type of space. Uh what was
it called? That? Just something close to your skin paracutaneous
paracutaneous space, Yes, where that sets off a whole different
set of neurons. They think too. That's kind of like
the new leading edge of this um and that reminds me, Chuck,

(49:33):
I cannot find this essay to save my life. But
it was by a philosopher, and he was basically saying, like,
where do you and and the rest of the world begin,
And obviously most people say your skin, but then he
pointed out that there's molecular exchange. There's gas exchange through
your skin, so at a point where like a air

(49:55):
molecules moving into your body through your skin, Like, is
there really any true barrier between you and the outside world.
It just jogged my memory when when they were talking
about paracutaneous space, and I was like, I wish I
could find the essay. It was one of the cooler
things I've ever read, or that cool uh thing you
can do, like when you close your eyes and you

(50:15):
can feel when someone's hand gets close to your face. Yeah,
you know, yeah, because they said it's not it's not
you don't have to be touching. It can be up
to like five centimeters away, and that paracutaneous space is
still going to give your your brain information. It's our energy,
bro it is man, Chakra, do you got anything else?

(50:37):
I got nothing else. I wish we could just talk
about this stuff all day. It's good stuff, I agree,
and I think everybody listening agrees. And since Chuck said
good stuff, that means it's time for a listener. Man.
But if you're like, you know, after we record, we
can just keep chatting about it, that's okay. I'm not
doing anything else. I gotta ticket nap you all right.

(51:01):
I'm gonna call this license plate funny boy. You never
know with this show what people are gonna respond to. Yeah,
I know that one got so much license plates just
people loved it. It was really we got a lot
of email about it. I think the ubiquity of some
of these lend itself to that. But here we go.
I love the episode of license Plate Guys, despite what

(51:24):
Josh predicted at the beginning, because I think you said
it was gonna be boring or something. How wrong I did. Sorry.
I was surprised that you hadn't come across the lists
of rejected vanity plates that you can find for different states.
I'm seventeen, and when I got my license about a
year ago, these state kept lists of vanity license plates.
Were almost legend in our driver's head. I don't know

(51:46):
if Georgia keeps track, but Utah Shirt does. It's still
very fun to delight in your inner six year old
when you're reading these. My personal favorites are lilt toot
poops with a Z and I can't believe this one.
I know, I guess these are rejected huh uh I'm farting.

(52:08):
Someone actually wanted a license weight that said I'm farting.
I like that. I would love to see that in
real life. I would too, highly recommend you try and
find the list for Georgia guys. The ones that aren't
like super racists are pretty fun to read through. Much
love from Elijah uh he him from Probo Utah awesome, Elijah,

(52:30):
that's really cool. Thank you for that. We totally didn't
run across this, so thanks for bringing it to our attention. Um.
And speaking of Utah Chuck, it just reminded me. Have
you seen Friend of the Family on Peacock No, I
don't know anything about it. Uh. It is off the rails.
It's set in the seventies, true story, weirdo true crime
in a way, but also just beyond nuts um and

(52:53):
has the extra bonus of my niece Mila being in it.
She's one of the daughters. Fantastic check it out. Though
it's really it's really good with thro without Mila, but
it's even better because Mela's in it, of course. And
you know, while we're shouting now Peacock, I don't know
if we ever shouted out our good friend Andy Sierra's show,
The Resort. Oh no, we don't know. Yeah, it's our
old friend Andy Sierra, who uh we got to know

(53:17):
through the band. He was in the Henry Clay People.
He and his brother Joey long story short, they wrote
the theme song to our TV show and we're also
story editors as screenwriters for our show. Uh. Andy's the
one that did the Hulu movie with Andy Sandberg called
Palm Springs, and uh he has his very own TV

(53:37):
show that is fully on Peacock now. It's called The Resort.
It is really good. Joey was a writer on it
as well, and it's just a very cool, fun show.
I highly recommended Emily and I loved it. Well. Congratulations Andy,
that's enormous good stuff. Yeah, we're gonna check that out.
Thanks for telling everybody about it too. Chuck Well, thanks
for Elijah for that email. And if you want to

(53:57):
be like Elijah and send an email at Jogs our
Memory to talk about unrelated TV shows. We love that
kind of thing. You can send us an email to
Stuff podcast at iHeart radio dot com. Stuff you Should
Know is a production of I heart Radio. For more
podcasts my heart Radio, visit the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,

(54:18):
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. H