The interpersonal distance kept by each individual plays a prominent role in daily social interactions and typically communicates implicitly human attitudes toward conspecifics. While it is held that men dyads keep a larger distance than women, information about whether such sex-related distance is moderated by sexual orientation and implicit/explicit sexual prejudice is scarce. To explore this issue, Heterosexual and Non-Heterosexual Men and Women (Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual) were immersed in virtual reality and asked to provide comfort-distance judgements in relation to approaching male or female avatars. Results showed that same-sex comfort-distance was smaller for Non-Heterosexual compared to Heterosexual participants. Moreover, the larger distance toward the male avatar kept by Heterosexual Men was associated with the implicit prejudice toward gay men. Our results indicate that comfort-distance demarcation is modulated by sexual orientation and that implicit sexual prejudice leads to increased interpersonal comfort-distance, a possible proxy to avoidant behaviors. Our approach suggests that immersive virtual reality may allow to overcome limitations typical of studies with real participants and provide a unique opportunity to explore the physiological and neural underpinnings of sexuality-related variables that regulate interpersonal distance.

每个人保持的人际距离在日常社交互动中发挥着重要作用，并且通常隐含地传达人类对同种人的态度。虽然人们认为男性二元组比女性保持更大的距离，但关于这种性相关距离是否受到性取向和隐性/显性性偏见的调节的信息很少。为了探讨这个问题，异性恋和非异性恋男性和女性（男同性恋、女同性恋、双性恋）沉浸在虚拟现实中，并被要求提供与接近男性或女性化身有关的舒适距离判断。结果表明，与异性恋参与者相比，非异性恋参与者的同性舒适距离更小。而且，异性恋男性对男性化身的较大距离与对男同性恋者的隐性偏见有关。我们的研究结果表明，舒适距离的划分受性取向的调节，而隐性的性偏见会导致人际舒适距离的增加，这可能是回避行为的代表。我们的方法表明，沉浸式虚拟现实可以克服真实参与者研究的典型局限性，并提供一个独特的机会来探索调节人际距离的性相关变量的生理和神经基础。