The human extended socio-attentional field and its impairment in borderline personality disorder and in social anxiety disorder

Bader, Oren

doi:10.1007/s11097-019-09621-w

Cited by 6 publications

(7 citation statements)

References 62 publications

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“…In borderline personality disorder, and most likely in social anxiety disorder and posttraumatic stress disorder, the affective response to the bodily presence of others is altered, and this involves modifications in what are considered as "cognitive" aspects of empathy. Specifically, subjects with these types of disorders tend to overemphasize negative affective cues at the expense of other socio-affective stimuli (58), and this impacts interpersonal resonance and consequently the way the world appears to them (59).…”

Section: Moving Beyond the Affective/cognitive Dichotomy: Ecological mentioning

confidence: 99%

Graded Empathy: A Neuro-Phenomenological Hypothesis

Lévy

Bader

2020

Front. Psychiatry

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The neuroscience of empathy has enormously expanded in the past two decades, thereby making instrumental progress for the understanding of neural substrates involved in affective and cognitive aspects of empathy. Yet, these conclusions have relied on ultrasimplified tasks resulting in the affective/cognitive dichotomy that was often modeled and overemphasized in pathological, developmental, and genetic studies of empathy. As such, the affective/cognitive model of empathy could not straightforwardly accommodate and explain the recent surge of neuroscientific data obtained from studies employing naturalistic approaches and intergroup conditions. Inspired by phenomenological philosophy, this article paves the way for a new scientific perspective on empathy that breaks thorough the affective/cognitive dichotomy. This neuro-phenomenological account leans on phenomenological analyses and can straightforwardly explain recent neuroscience data. It emphasizes the dynamic, subjective, and piecemeal features of empathic experiences and unpicks the graded nature of empathy. The graded empathy hypothesis postulates that attending to others' expressions always facilitates empathy, but the parametric modulation in the levels of the empathic experience varies as a function of one's social interest (e.g., via intergroup or inter-personal cues) in the observed other. Drawing on multiple resources that integrate neuroscience with phenomenology, we describe the potential of this graded framework in an era of real-life experimentation. By wearing lenses of neuro-phenomenology, this original perspective can change the way empathy is considered.

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Section: Moving Beyond the Affective/cognitive Dichotomy: Ecological mentioning

confidence: 99%

Graded Empathy: A Neuro-Phenomenological Hypothesis

Lévy

Bader

2020

Front. Psychiatry

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“…For instance, subjects immediately attached seeing people running toward them to the loud noise they just heard. Similarly, others’ facial expressions of joy when watching together a person juggling balls in the city square are automatically ascribed by the subject to the scene [3]. This important feature of social perception supplements the use young children gradually learn to make of others’ embodied reactions to guide them in how to assess and respond to events around them, i.e., social referencing [33, 34] and joint attention.…”

Section: The Phenomenal Nature Of Social Perception Anomalies In Asdmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Experiencing a recurrent problem to grasp the wholeness of a situation, which is bound up with the sense of unfamiliarity of the social space, amplifies feelings of confusion and uncertainty. These feelings further impede the autistic subject’s capacity of prereflectively grasping where things stand and what is about to come [3]. In unstable environments, this facilitates a constant feeling of unsafeness that affects the subject’s reactions to dangerous situations.…”

Section: Social Perception and The Experience Of The Social Space – A...mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…This fundamental disturbance in the functioning of social perception seems to be correlated to the general problems in the body and affect attunement that is typical to ASD [24,39]. People with autism often struggle with distinguishing the affective states of others [30] and this difficulty results in people with autism acquiring less knowledge about everyday events by tracking and following others' body patterns [1] 3 .…”

Section: The Phenomenal Nature Of Social Perception Anomalies In Asdmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In everyday environments, the experience of the social space typically involves feelings of familiarity and safeness [1, 2]. Phenomenological approaches assert that the unfolding of these spatial feelings that are essential for the subject’s wellness is tightly linked to the operation of embodied intersubjectivity [3, 4]. Insofar as embodied-affective processes implied in intersubjective encounters form a “space of alignment,” the environment is experienced as comprehended and safe, and the sense of everydayness prevails [5].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Gestalt Perception and the Experience of the Social Space in Autism: A Case Study

Bader

Fuchs

2022

Psychopathology

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Phenomenological approaches suggest that the bodily presence of others has a profound influence on the experience of social spaces. This intimate relationship is particularly evident in mental disorders. Investigations into the nature of intersubjectivity in various pathologies indicate that modifications to the capacity for social perception play a key role in determining the manners in which the social space is experienced and felt. This paper aims to examine the interviewing relation of social perception and the experience of space and its consequences in autism spectrum disorder (ASD). This is done through a phenomenologically informed analysis of the functioning of social perception in ASD. Our account proposes that the atypical socio-perceptual patterns exhibited by people with autism significantly reduce the capacity to grasp the context of the situation, which facilitates and intensifies negative feelings that are intertwined with the experience of social spaces. This novel understanding draws on the idea that ASD involves a fundamental difficulty to establish a gestalt perception of social scenes. The evidence we discuss suggests that this anomaly in the operation of social perception also modulates the experience of the social space. Failing to perceive the wholeness of the situation means that people with autism often experience the social space as unfamiliar, confusing, uncertain, and unsafe, rather than feeling familiar and understood in the embodied presence of others. As a result, autistic subjects may experience difficulty evaluating the outcomes of hazardous circumstances, which poses a risk to their well-being, particularly in borderline situations. This suggestion is elaborated through the tragic occurrences that led to the killing of Eyad al-Hallaq, a 32-year-old Palestinian with autism.

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Alterations of social attention in mental disorders: Phenomenology, scope, and future directions for research

Bader

2020

Consciousness and Cognition

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The human extended socio-attentional field and its impairment in borderline personality disorder and in social anxiety disorder

Cited by 6 publications

References 62 publications

Graded Empathy: A Neuro-Phenomenological Hypothesis

Graded Empathy: A Neuro-Phenomenological Hypothesis

Gestalt Perception and the Experience of the Social Space in Autism: A Case Study

Alterations of social attention in mental disorders: Phenomenology, scope, and future directions for research

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