Is empathy necessary to comprehend the emotional faces? The empathic effect on attentional mechanisms (eye movements), cortical correlates (N200 event-related potentials) and facial behaviour (electromyography) in face processing

Abstract

The present research explored the effect of social empathy on processing emotional facial expressions. Previous evidence suggested a close relationship between emotional empathy and both the ability to detect facial emotions and the attentional mechanisms involved. A multi-measure approach was adopted: we investigated the association between trait empathy (Balanced Emotional Empathy Scale) and individuals' performance (response times; RTs), attentional mechanisms (eye movements; number and duration of fixations), correlates of cortical activation (event-related potential (ERP) N200 component), and facial responsiveness (facial zygomatic and corrugator activity). Trait empathy was found to affect face detection performance (reduced RTs), attentional processes (more scanning eye movements in specific areas of interest), ERP salience effect (increased N200 amplitude), and electromyographic activity (more facial responses). A second important result was the demonstration of strong, direct correlations among these measures. We suggest that empathy may function as a social facilitator of the processes underlying the detection of facial emotion, and a general "facial response effect" is proposed to explain these results. We assumed that empathy influences cognitive and the facial responsiveness, such that empathic individuals are more skilful in processing facial emotion.

Bonding Pictures: Affective Ratings Are Specifically Associated to Loneliness But Not to Empathy

“…The scale used here to measure the empathy of individuals was related to their experience and exposure to emotional expressions (Doherty, 1997). As empathy acts as a social facilitator of processes for detection of facial emotions, more empathic individuals are consequently more skilled in processing facial expressions (Balconi and Canavesio, 2016). In this respect, it is reasonable to suppose that the increase in valence and arousal ratings of emotional pictures among more empathic individuals compared to less empathic ones can be explained by their greater capacity to be involve in emotional stimuli in general.…”

The Influence of Empathy Trait and Gender on Empathic Responses. A Study With Dynamic Emotional Stimulus and Eye Movement Recordings

“…Other authors have classified the previous components in affective empathy (affect sharing), cognitive empathy (mentalizing or perspective taking), and prosocial behavior skills (Retuerto, 2004;Calvo et al, 2008;Zaki and Oschner, 2012;Balconi and Canavesio, 2014). In addition, another aspect related with the empathic process concerns the facial emotional recognition; this gives the possibility to decode others' internal states from facial expressions (Hall and Masumoto, 2004;Balconi and Canavesio, 2014). Thus, the empathic responses present the interest to allow us to react in the most socially appropriate way in order to interact successfully with others in the daily life (Singer, 2006) including social networks (Schmaelzle et al, 2017).…”

“…Regarding the process of facial emotional recognition, it has been suggested that it is related with a specific visual scan pattern, in which those who look at the eyes for a longer period of time show greater accuracy and speed to recognize emotions than those who spent less time looking on eyes' area (Hall and Masumoto, 2004;Calvo et al, 2008;Balconi and Canavesio, 2014). Some studies have reported participants spent more time looking at the eyes area in emotionally stimulus than neutral, highlighting the notion that eye-to-eye encounters are critical to successful engage social interactions (Mason et al, 2005;Cowan et al, 2014).…”

Improving empathy with motivational strategies in batterer intervention programmes: Results of a randomized controlled trial

“…It has been suggested that cognitive abilities such as the ability to decode emotions (a basic source of information to infer another individual's perspective based on their facial expressions), cognitive empathy (the ability to understand how another person sees the world and the ability to consciously put your mind into the mind of another person (perspective taking)) and emotional empathy (although emotional contagion is a component of this, emotional empathy is the ability to understand or feel what someone else feels, and so ‘experience sharing’ is the key (affective arousal)) are involved in moral reasoning, prosocial behaviour, social and emotional adequacy, mood and behaviour regulation (Balconi & Canavesio, ; Burnett, Chandler, & Trantham‐Davidson, ; Ramsøy, Skov, Macoveanu, Siebner, & Fosgaard, ; Schipper & Petermann, ; Zaki, ). Thus, alterations in these functions could reduce behaviour control and favour the adoption of antisocial behaviours such as IPV (Heinz, Beck, Meyer‐Lindenberg, Sterzer, & Heinz, ; Romero‐Martínez, Lila, Catalá‐Miñana, Williams, & Moya‐Albiol, ; Romero‐Martínez, Lila, Sariñana‐González, González‐Bono, & Moya‐Albiol, ; Romero‐Martínez & Moya‐Albiol, ).…”