Beyond self-report: Perceived similar experience is linked to multimodal synchrony

Similar past experiences are widely believed to enhance empathic responses to targets who have faced a similar kind of adversity. However, most evidence relies on subjective self-reports, and the mechanisms underlying this enhancement remain poorly understood. We investigated whether self-reported prior similar experience is linked to stronger embodied and emotional synchrony with a target, a well-established mechanism of affective empathy. We reanalysed data from a previously published study (Dor-Ziderman et al., 2021) in which participants watched a video of a woman describing a traumatic event from her past. We focused on female participants who were classified post-hoc into two experimental groups based on their answer to a post-viewing self-report question asking whether they had a similar experience in their own past; those answering 'yes' formed the Perceived Similar Experience (PSE) group (n = 19), and those answering 'no' formed the noPSE group (n = 18). Time-locked multimodal recordings from both the target and the observers allowed us to quantify facial, cardiovascular, and emotional synchrony with the target, which was compared across groups. Results showed that perceived similarity was linked to significantly greater facial, cardiovascular, and emotional synchrony with the target. Notably, self-reports of empathy, concern, and distress did not differ significantly between groups. These findings indicate that perceived experiential similarity shapes real-time physiological and emotional alignment during exposure to another's painful disclosure, in ways that self-reports alone may fail to reflect. We discuss these results within the framework of self-other merge, suggesting that perceived self-relevance may shift observers toward physiological resonance with the target, potentially compromising self-other distinction.