The bodily fundament of empathy: The role of action, nonaction-oriented, and interoceptive body representations

Abstract

Mental representations with bodily contents or in various bodily formats have been suggested to play a pivotal role in social cognition, including empathy. However, there is a lack of systematic studies investigating, in the same sample of participants and using an individual differences approach, whether and to what extent the sensorimotor, perceptual, and interoceptive representations of the body could fulfill an explanatory role in the empathic abilities. To address this goal, we carried out two studies in which healthy adults were given measures of interoceptive sensibility (IS), action (aBR), and nonaction-oriented body representations (NaBR), and affective, cognitive, and motor empathy. A higher tendency to be self-focused on interoceptive signals predicted higher affective, cognitive, and motor empathy levels. A better performance in tasks probing aBR and NaBR predicted, respectively, higher motor and cognitive empathy levels. These findings support the view that the various facets of the empathic response are differently grounded in the body since they diversely involve representations with a different bodily format. Individual differences in the focus on one's internal body state representation can directly modulate all the components of the empathic experience. Instead, a body representation used interpersonally to represent both one's own body and others' bodies, in particular in its spatial specificity, could be necessary to accurately understand other people's minds (cognitive empathy), while a sensorimotor body representation used to represent both one's own body and others' bodies actions, could be fundamental for the self-awareness of feelings expressed in actions (motor empathy).

Linking the inner and outer body representation with social cognition skills: a Systematic Review and Meta-analysis

“…In line with the idea that cognition is embodied, and specifically that mental representations in various bodily formats could play a crucial role in social cognition (Goldman & de Vignemont, 2009), some studies have empirically demonstrated an association between inner and outer bodily processing and social cognition skills, including empathy (Fukushima et al, 2011;Raimo et al, 2023) and ToM (e.g., Shah et al, 2017;Canino et al, 2022). However, despite this recent evidence, results from primary studies are still conflicting, and, for example, other studies point out that a simple relationship between the inner bodily processing, in terms of IAcc, and specific components of empathy and ToM cannot be predicted (e.g., Ainley et al, 2015).…”

“…No association between cognitive/affective empathy and aBR was found. However, it should be underlined that in this review, we did not consider a possible additional component of empathy, that is, action-based or motor empathy (see Blair, 2005), which a study by Raimo et al (2023) suggests being specifically associated with aBR (or body schema).…”

“…After full-text selection, 18 articles were considered eligible. In addition, three articles were identified through other sources (Canino et al, 2022;Lee et al, 2021;Raimo et al, 2023). Of these 21 identified primary research articles: seven articles assessed affective empathy and IAcc (Ainley et al, 2015, experiment A and B;Christensen et al, 2017;Grynberg & Pollatos, 2015;Lischke et al, 2019;Mul et al, 2018;Shaw et al, 2018;Tajadura-Jiménez & Tsakiris, 2014), five articles assessed cognitive empathy and IAcc (Ainley et al, 2015, experiment A and B;Grynberg & Pollatos, 2015;Mul et al, 2018;Shaw et al, 2018;Tajadura-Jiménez & Tsakiris, 2014), eight articles assessed overall empathy and IAcc (Ainley et al, 2015, experiment A and B;Christensen et al, 2017;Heydrich et al, 2021;Mul et al, 2018;Plans et al, 2021, experiment A and B;Shaw et al, 2018;Tajadura-Jiménez & Tsakiris, 2014;Yang, Zhou et al, 2021), four articles assessed affective/cognitive empathy and ISe (Mul et al, 2018;Raimo et al, 2023, experiment A and B;Stoica & Depue, 2020;Yang, Hu et al, 2021), six articles assessed overall empathy and ISe (Mul et al, 2018;Plans et al, 2021, experiment A;Raimo et al, 2023, experiment A and B;Stoica & Depue, 2020;Yang, Hu et al, 2021;Yang, Zhou et al, 2021), eight articles assessed affective ToM and IAcc (Ainley et al, 2015, experiment C;Dirupo et al, 2020;El Grabli et al, 2021;…”

“…(i.e., Raimo et al, 2023, experiment B) investigated the relationship between affective/cognitive empathy and NaBR we did not perform a meta-analysis and summarize here the main findings. Raimo et al (2023) explored the relationship between affective/cognitive empathy and NaBR in a sample of 164 healthy adults (age range: 19-59 yrs.). No significant association was found between the affective component of empathy and NaBR, while there was a weak association between the cognitive component of empathy and NaBR.…”

“…There is limited evidence concerning the relationship between NaBR and empathy, although the processing of visuospatial relations and distances among body parts (i.e., NaBR; see Raimo et al, 2023) seems to be associated with the cognitive component of empathy. Individuals with better NaBR could better represent their boundaries and, thus, be more able (as possibly the individuals with higher IAcc) to differentiate between themselves and others correctly, which is an essential step toward understanding what another agent feels (Lamm et al, 2016).…”