Empathy for pain influences perceptual and motor processing: Evidence from response force, ERPs, and EEG oscillations

In the present study we investigated the nature and chronometry of empathy for pain influences on perceptual and motor processes. Thus, event-related brain potentials (ERPs), response force (RF) and oscillatory electroencephalography (EEG) activity were measured while participants were presented with pictures of body parts in painful or neutral situations. Their task consisted in either judging the painfulness of the stimuli or counting the body parts displayed. ERP results supported the assumption of an early automatic component of empathy for pain, as reflected by the early posterior negativity (EPN), and of a late controlled component, as reflected by the late posterior positivity (P3). RF indicated that empathy-evoking stimuli facilitate motor responses if attention is directed toward the pain dimension, whereas EEG oscillations in the mu-and beta-band revealed, independent of the task, an enhanced activation of the sensorimotor cortex after the response to painful compared to neutral stimuli. In conclusion, present findings indicate that empathy-evoking stimuli produce automatic and controlled effects on both perceptual and motor processing.