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Related Concept Videos

Empathy02:34

Empathy

Some researchers suggest that altruism operates on empathy. Empathy is the capacity to understand another person’s perspective, to feel what he or she feels. An empathetic person makes an emotional connection with others and feels compelled to help (Batson, 1991). Empathy can be expressed in several ways, including cognitive, affective, and motor.

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Brain Imaging Investigation of the Impairing Effect of Emotion on Cognition
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Mindreading in individuals with an empathizing versus systemizing cognitive style: An fMRI study.

F Focquaert1, M S Steven-Wheeler, S Vanneste

  • 1Department of Philosophy and Moral Sciences, Ghent University, Belgium. farah.focquaert@ugent.be

Brain Research Bulletin
|August 24, 2010
PubMed
Summary

Empathizing individuals show more simulation-based brain activity during face-based mindreading, particularly in mirror neuron areas. Systemizing individuals exhibit less simulation-based activity, suggesting different neural strategies for understanding others.

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Area of Science:

  • Neuroscience
  • Cognitive Psychology
  • Social Cognition

Background:

  • Individual differences in cognitive styles, specifically empathizing and systemizing, influence social cognition.
  • Face-based mindreading, the ability to infer mental states from facial expressions, is crucial for social interaction.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To compare the neural correlates of face-based mindreading between individuals with empathizing and systemizing cognitive styles.
  • To investigate whether empathizing and systemizing cognitive styles are associated with distinct patterns of brain activity during social cognition.

Main Methods:

  • Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) was used to measure brain activity.
  • Participants included healthy individuals with either an empathizing (high empathy, low systemizing) or systemizing (low empathy, high systemizing) cognitive style.
  • Participants viewed faces and inferred mental states.

Main Results:

  • The empathizing group showed significantly stronger activity in mirror neuron areas (inferior frontal gyrus, inferior parietal lobe) and temporal regions associated with perspective-taking and memory.
  • The empathizing group also exhibited activity in the medial prefrontal cortex and anterior cingulate cortex, linked to simulation-based mindreading.
  • The systemizing group displayed stronger activity in the left parahippocampal gyrus and showed less simulation-based neural activity overall.

Conclusions:

  • Both empathizing and systemizing individuals utilize simulation-based neural processes for face-based mindreading.
  • Empathizing individuals rely more heavily on simulation-based processing, while systemizing individuals engage more non-simulation-based processing.
  • These findings highlight the neural underpinnings of different cognitive styles in social cognition.