Tracking emotions in the brain - Revisiting the Empathic Accuracy Task
Tracking emotions in the brain - Revisiting the Empathic Accuracy Task
Many empathy tasks lack ecological validity due to their use of simplistic stimuli and static analytical approaches. Empathic accuracy tasks overcome these limitations by using autobiographical emotional video clips. Usually, a single measure of empathic accuracy is computed by correlating the participants' continuous ratings of the narrator's emotional state with the narrator's own ratings.
In this study, we validated a modified empathic accuracy task. A valence-independent rating of the narrator's emotional intensity was added to provide comparability between videos portraying different primary emotions and to explore changes in neural activity related to variations in emotional intensity over time. We also added a new neutral control condition to investigate general emotional processing. In the scanner, 34 healthy participants watched 6 video clips of people talking about an autobiographical event (2 sad, 2 happy and 2 neutral clips) while continuously rating the narrator's emotional intensity.
Fluctuation in perceived emotional intensity correlated with activity in brain regions previously implicated in cognitive empathy (bilateral superior temporal sulcus, temporoparietal junction, and temporal pole) and affective empathy (right anterior insula and inferior frontal gyrus). When emotional video clips were compared to neutral video clips, we observed higher activity in similar brain regions. Empathic accuracy, on the other hand, was only positively related to activation in regions that have been implicated in cognitive empathy.
Our modified empathic accuracy task provides a new method for studying the underlying components and dynamic processes involved in empathy. While the task elicited both cognitive and affective empathy, successful tracking of others' emotions relied predominantly on the cognitive components of empathy. The fMRI data analysis techniques developed here may prove valuable in characterising the neural basis of empathic difficulties observed across a range of psychiatric conditions.
Empathy, Emotion, Social cognition, fMRI, Ecological validity
677-686
Mackes, Nuria K.
0ade154d-e560-4675-a863-5e16e0ffcd54
Golm, Dennis
ae337f61-561e-4d44-9cf3-3e5611c7b484
O'Daly, Owen G.
051bce19-0f2c-471b-aef2-1485d523771a
Sarkar, Sagari
66e7e4d0-92d2-4900-8274-14f6459af3a6
Sonuga-Barke, Edmund J.S.
bc80bf95-6cf9-4c76-a09d-eaaf0b717635
Fairchild, Graeme
f99bc911-978e-48c2-9754-c6460666a95f
Mehta, Mitul A.
656d4095-c3a0-4161-8cb7-0dafcaf1404e
September 2018
Mackes, Nuria K.
0ade154d-e560-4675-a863-5e16e0ffcd54
Golm, Dennis
ae337f61-561e-4d44-9cf3-3e5611c7b484
O'Daly, Owen G.
051bce19-0f2c-471b-aef2-1485d523771a
Sarkar, Sagari
66e7e4d0-92d2-4900-8274-14f6459af3a6
Sonuga-Barke, Edmund J.S.
bc80bf95-6cf9-4c76-a09d-eaaf0b717635
Fairchild, Graeme
f99bc911-978e-48c2-9754-c6460666a95f
Mehta, Mitul A.
656d4095-c3a0-4161-8cb7-0dafcaf1404e
Mackes, Nuria K., Golm, Dennis, O'Daly, Owen G., Sarkar, Sagari, Sonuga-Barke, Edmund J.S., Fairchild, Graeme and Mehta, Mitul A.
(2018)
Tracking emotions in the brain - Revisiting the Empathic Accuracy Task.
NeuroImage, 178, .
(doi:10.1016/j.neuroimage.2018.05.080).
Abstract
Many empathy tasks lack ecological validity due to their use of simplistic stimuli and static analytical approaches. Empathic accuracy tasks overcome these limitations by using autobiographical emotional video clips. Usually, a single measure of empathic accuracy is computed by correlating the participants' continuous ratings of the narrator's emotional state with the narrator's own ratings.
In this study, we validated a modified empathic accuracy task. A valence-independent rating of the narrator's emotional intensity was added to provide comparability between videos portraying different primary emotions and to explore changes in neural activity related to variations in emotional intensity over time. We also added a new neutral control condition to investigate general emotional processing. In the scanner, 34 healthy participants watched 6 video clips of people talking about an autobiographical event (2 sad, 2 happy and 2 neutral clips) while continuously rating the narrator's emotional intensity.
Fluctuation in perceived emotional intensity correlated with activity in brain regions previously implicated in cognitive empathy (bilateral superior temporal sulcus, temporoparietal junction, and temporal pole) and affective empathy (right anterior insula and inferior frontal gyrus). When emotional video clips were compared to neutral video clips, we observed higher activity in similar brain regions. Empathic accuracy, on the other hand, was only positively related to activation in regions that have been implicated in cognitive empathy.
Our modified empathic accuracy task provides a new method for studying the underlying components and dynamic processes involved in empathy. While the task elicited both cognitive and affective empathy, successful tracking of others' emotions relied predominantly on the cognitive components of empathy. The fMRI data analysis techniques developed here may prove valuable in characterising the neural basis of empathic difficulties observed across a range of psychiatric conditions.
Text
1-s2.0-S1053811918305068-main
- Version of Record
More information
Accepted/In Press date: 31 May 2018
e-pub ahead of print date: 8 June 2018
Published date: September 2018
Keywords:
Empathy, Emotion, Social cognition, fMRI, Ecological validity
Identifiers
Local EPrints ID: 424379
URI: http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/id/eprint/424379
ISSN: 1053-8119
PURE UUID: c73745a0-189d-4ffc-a541-6e22605c7993
Catalogue record
Date deposited: 05 Oct 2018 11:36
Last modified: 16 Mar 2024 04:18
Export record
Altmetrics
Contributors
Author:
Nuria K. Mackes
Author:
Owen G. O'Daly
Author:
Sagari Sarkar
Author:
Edmund J.S. Sonuga-Barke
Author:
Graeme Fairchild
Author:
Mitul A. Mehta
Download statistics
Downloads from ePrints over the past year. Other digital versions may also be available to download e.g. from the publisher's website.
View more statistics