Embodiment Of Approach-Avoidance Behavior: Motivational Priming Of Whole-Body Movements In A Virtual World

Previous studies have shown that humans can flexibly reconfigure manual reactions to motivational stimuli to produce compatible changes in visual environments (i.e., approach appetitive and avoid aversive stimuli). Using a virtual reality headset, we examined whether analogous flexibility is observed with whole-body movements in forward and backward directions that produced (non-)corresponding visual movements in a virtual environment. Two experiments showed that initiation of a forward movement was facilitated in response to a (pleasant) flower and a backward movement in response to an (unpleasant) spider, even when the movements resulted in reverse visual motions toward the spider and away from the flower. In contrast, visual motions were more important when attention was shifted to the visual motions in the virtual world (Experiment 3) or when these motions were controlled manually (Experiment 4). Overall, results suggest that there is a highly overlearned connection between locomotion and approach/avoidance that is difficult to override. A perceptual control theory of embodied motivated action is proposed.