Perspective taking is associated with specific facial responses during empathy for pain

Lamm, Claus; Porges, Eric C.; Cacioppo, John T.; Decety, Jean

doi:10.1016/j.brainres.2008.06.066

Cited by 125 publications

(127 citation statements)

References 34 publications

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“…Rather, these facial EMGs reflect the expression of negative affect felt by participants, as also observed for the observation of unpleasant scenes in which no facial cues were presented (see [26] for review). Although frowning, controlled by the corrugator supercilii, is a generic facial movement for negative affect, cheek raising and eye narrowing, controlled by the orbicularis occuli, are more specific to painful expression [18,21].…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Facial expression in response to an other's pain expression appears to be a reliable indicator of empathic response. Lamm et al [18] showed that frowning increased when presented with videos of patients' faces expressing pain. In addition, the facial muscle, orbicularis oculi, involved in the typical cheek raising and tightening of the orbits of painful expression, was specifically contracted when participants had to put themselves in the patients' position.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Responsibility and the sense of agency enhance empathy for pain

2015

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Being held responsible for our actions strongly determines our moral judgements and decisions. This study examined whether responsibility also influences our affective reaction to others' emotions. We conducted two experiments in order to assess the effect of responsibility and of a sense of agency (the conscious feeling of controlling an action) on the empathic response to pain. In both experiments, participants were presented with video clips showing an actor's facial expression of pain of varying intensity. The empathic response was assessed with behavioural ( pain intensity estimation from facial expressions and unpleasantness for the observer ratings) and electrophysiological measures (facial electromyography). Experiment 1 showed enhanced empathic response (increased unpleasantness for the observer and facial electromyography responses) as participants' degree of responsibility for the actor's pain increased. This effect was mainly accounted for by the decisional component of responsibility (compared with the execution component). In addition, experiment 2 found that participants' unpleasantness rating also increased when they had a sense of agency over the pain, while controlling for decision and execution processes. The findings suggest that increased empathy induced by responsibility and a sense of agency may play a role in regulating our moral conduct.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Responsibility and the sense of agency enhance empathy for pain

2015

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“…The latter study also indicated that cortical networks involved in cognitive control and response inhibition played an important role in the appraisal-based modulation of neural activity. Moreover, recent investigations suggest that behavioral, neural, and autonomic responses are altered when the people in pain are members of another race (Xu et al 2009), when they are socially stigmatized , or when appraising their pain results in heightened personal distress (Lamm et al 2007a(Lamm et al , 2008. Most notably, a recent study indicated that, after participants observe ingroup or outgroup members receiving painful electric shocks, the response in AI predicts whether they will help those people in a later stage of the experiment (Hein et al 2010).…”

Section: A Model For the Role Of Ai In Actual And Predictive Feeling mentioning

confidence: 99%

The role of anterior insular cortex in social emotions

2010

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Functional neuroimaging investigations in the fields of social neuroscience and neuroeconomics indicate that the anterior insular cortex (AI) is consistently involved in empathy, compassion, and interpersonal phenomena such as fairness and cooperation. These findings suggest that AI plays an important role in social emotions, hereby defined as affective states that arise when we interact with other people and that depend on the social context. After we link the role of AI in social emotions to interoceptive awareness and the representation of current global emotional states, we will present a model suggesting that AI is not only involved in representing current states, but also in predicting emotional states relevant to the self and others. This model also proposes that AI enables us to learn about emotional states as well as about the uncertainty attached to events, and implies that AI plays a dominant role in decision making in complex and uncertain environments. Our review further highlights that dorsal and ventro-central, as well as anterior and posterior subdivisions of AI potentially subserve different functions and guide different aspects of behavioral regulation. We conclude with a section summarizing different routes to understanding other people's actions, feelings and thoughts, emphasizing the notion that the predominant role of AI involves understanding others' feeling and bodily states rather than their action intentions or abstract beliefs.

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“…Although speculative, the differential effects of ostensibly similar but differentiallymotivated caregiving behaviours (both within and outside the context of pain) may be mediated by quality of caregiving response, reflected in such non-verbal elements as tone of voice, interpersonal distance, touch/physical contact, and facial expression [31,52,62,70]. In this way, the effects of parental reassurance in response to a child's pain may engender quite different results depending on the tone in which the message was communicated [64].…”

Section: The Relationship Between Emotion and Motivation In Painmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In this way, the effects of parental reassurance in response to a child's pain may engender quite different results depending on the tone in which the message was communicated [64]. Similarly, efforts to distract a pain sufferer with humour are likely to rely a great deal on what is communicated by the facial expression of the pain observer/caregiver [18,52,71]. A complementary mechanism may be an observer's sensitivity to feedback cues provided by the person in pain [72,73].…”

Section: The Relationship Between Emotion and Motivation In Painmentioning

confidence: 99%