Empathy

Sowden (2018)

Impaired self other distinction in autism - suggest that the impairment to control or modulate social behaviour in autism may be explained by a poor self-other distinction

Krall et al (2015)

Evaluation: Common or distinct process in TPJ - conducted an activation likelihood estimation metanalysis of 47 neuroimaging studies and confirmed: 1. posterior right TPJ in social domain 2. anterior right TPJ in attentional as well as social processing

Batson et al (1997)

Definitions of empathy - an other oriented emotional response congruent with another' perceived welfare

Goldman (1993)

Definitions of empathy the ability to put oneself into the mental shoes of another person to understand their emotions and feelings (a form of simulation or inner imitation)

Ickes (1997)

Definitions of empathy - a complex psychological inference in which observation, memory, knowledge and reasoning are combined to yield insights into the thoughts and feelings of others

Hoffman (1975)

Definitions of empathy - an affective response more appropriate to another's situation than one's own

Eisenberg (2000)

Definitions of empathy - an affective response that stems from the apprehension or comprehension of another's emotional state or condition and is similar to what the other person is feeling or would be expected to feel in a given situation

Decety et al (2015)

Definitions of empathy - an induction process that reflects an innate ability to perceive and be sensitive to the emotional state of others, which can be (but is not necessarily) coupled with a motivation to care for their wellbeing.

Sowden & Catmur (2015)

Evaluation: Common or distinct process in TPJ - applied disruptive TMS to the right TPJ compared to a control mid occipital site - found this modulated performance in an imitation inhibition task (social) but not a non social attentional control variation (spatial compatibility)

Silani et al (2013)

Evaluation: Common or distinct process in TPJ - showed that the SMG is required to overcome emotional egocentricity bias in social judgements - a novel visual-tactile paradigm assessing the degree to which empathetic judgements are biased by one's own emotions when incongruent - seated in pairs, presented with 2 pictures of objects accompanied by simultaneous stroking of the left hand with a material congruent to the feel of the object presented on the screen - labels 'you' and 'other' above the pictures indicated congruence between pictures and participant/oter stimulation - immediately afterwards, had to judge expressed pleasantness or unpleasantness of the stimulation to self or other - found an egocentricity bias: larger difference between incongruent and congruent other related judgements than self related - overcoming these biases was associated with increased activity in right SMG - disruption of right SMG with TMS led to an increase in emotional egocentricity bias - shows that the SMG is involved in overcoming emotional egocentricity

Lee et al (1994)

Impaired self-other distinction in autism - asked ASD and control participants to perform a visual perspective-taking task (identify who was in photographs) - ASD participants were significantly less likely to employ the pronoun 'you' to refer to the experimenter and 'me' when they were the subject

Meyer & Hobson (2004)

Impaired self-other distinction in autism - examined self other orientation in 16 ASD and 16 comparisons - participants performed 4 object oriented tasks such as rolling a wheel, stacking objects while lines on the floor segregated the child and experimenter's personal space - tasks were either directed towards the child or adults' personal space and children were asked to imitate the model's actions - shows that children with ASD performed significantly fewer responses that modelled the self other orientation to the object - often showed 'geometric repetition' : imitated experimenter's action without a self or other orientation - e.g. rollling a wheel in the centre of the testing space - suggests an impairment in intersubjective imitation

Sowden et al (2018)

Impaired self-other distinction in autism - extended the investigation of self-other control in lie detection to ASD using the video mediated lie detection paradigm - found an interaction between autistic traits and opinion consistency - positive correlation between lie detection consistency and autistic traits both in controls and ASD groups: better at identifying lying in senders with the same rather than different opinion, with greater ASD traits - contrary to expectation, failed to replicate the opinion consistency effect in the control group - suggests impaired self other distinction with ASD traits, both in normal population and ASD diagnosed

Spengler et al (2010)

Impaired self-other distinction in autism - investigated imitation inhibition in 18 HFA and 18 controls - ask to lift their finger to 1 or 2 while watching congruent or incongruent videos - also measured verbal ToM ability (strange stories) and visual ToM (animations task) - showed increased automatic imitation in ASD compared to controls, showed by a greater interference effect - this correlated with reduced mentalising on verbal ToM and fMRI during visual ToM showed reduced activity in mPFC, TPJ and STS - supports a link between poor control of imitation in ASD and social cognition, which may be due to poor self-other control

Decoster et al (2018)

Impaired self-other distinction in autism: Problems - manipulated the self-other distinction in a paradigm previously shown to ayer this effect - either imitated or not by a hand on a screen, followed by a strong pain stimulus inflicted on the observed hadn - being imitated by the hand on the screen led to higher affective reactions to observing painful stimuli - this was mediated by decreased self-other distinction - attempted to investigate whether this manipulation had a different effect on ASD participants - behavioural and physiological responses (blink, SCR) were the same as adults without ASD to pain, showing no general deficit for empathy for pain in ASD - at first inspection, phsyiological measures showed no effect of imitation vs no imitation in ASD, but temporal analysis showed - an increase in empathetic responding over time with imitative and a decrease in empathetic responding over time in non imitative - initially HFA showed a reversed influence of imitation to controls (imitation< no imitation) but later in time this was similar to TD controls (imitation > no imitation)- infant AsD > TD - suggests that HFA have compromised self-other distinction, but may have responded counterintuitively initially due to coping mechanisms from the intensity of the response (e.g. diverting attention)

Sowden et al (2016)

Impaired self-other distinction in autism: Problems - showed that individuals with alexithymia show unimproved self other distinction (better at imitation inhibition) - conflict with reduced self-other distinction in ASD

Cheng et al (2012)

Implicit Empathy Paradigms - measured pain thresholds, brain potentials elicited by the perception of people in pain and a measure of psychopathology in 15 young offenders - shown pain accidentally caused by the self, no pain-self, pain caused by another, no pain other. - showed that young offenders had higher pain thresholds than controls - brain activity showed atypical neural dynamics when exposed to situations in which someone was hurt by another, in the early stages of arousal: reduced N120 and LPP to pain-self vs no pain, and reduced N120 to pain-other but LPP still present (suggesting that this was involved in the understanding of intentionality). - LPP correlated with numbers of psychopathic traits and pain thresholds. - the capacity to understand intentionality was not affected - demonstrates the the reduced empathy in psychopaths might be a result of atypical neural processing in response to empathy-eliciting stimuli, resulting in the uncoupling of affective arrousal from emotion understanding - not due to poor ability to understand emotions - due to reduced arousal to other's distress

Jackson et al (2005)

Implicit Empathy Paradigms - showed participants a series of still photographs of hands and feet in situations likely to cause pain versus a matched set of control photographs without painful events - activity in ACC and AI was greater for painful than non-painful - strong correlation between the intensity of the pain identified in the other and activation in the mid-cingulate cortex

Gu et al (2012)

Implicit Empathy Paradigms - showed that AI patients show an increased 'cost of pain' when making laterality judgements, and suggest this is due to the AI modulating personal distress

De Guzman et al (2015)

Implicit Empathy Paradigms - showed that PD scores predict MEPs to the observation of pain - suggests that personal distress might be a better indicator of implicit empathy effects.

Avenanti et al (2005)

Implicit Empathy Paradigms - showed that a video of a needle pricking a specific hand muscle reduces motor excitability of the equivalent muscle in the observer, similar to the freezing response when pain administered - correlated with pain intensity, but not pain unpleasantness ratings - no effect seen with the video of a cotton bud touching the same muscle or when the needle prick was applied to another part of the body or a tomato. - shows that watching pain interferes with processing in a similar way as it is experienced in the self.

Lockwood et al (2013)

Implicit Empathy Paradigms - showed that high levels of psychopathic traits were associated with impaired affective resonance while while cognitive perspective taking was itact 1. cognitive perspective taking measured on visual ToM 2. affective resonance measured on viewing images of others in pain and rate own response. 3. alexithymia, autism and psychopathy questionnaires. - psychopathic traits negative correlation with affective resonance task, but not ASD. - those with ASD showed intact affective resonance but impaired cognitive perspective taking - alexithymia did not change patterns result but there was also a unique negative correlation between alexithymia and affective resonance but not ToM.

Wicker et al (2003)

Implicit Empathy Paradigms - showed that the observation of disgusted faces and the smell of disgusting odours activated the same restricted group of pain structures, including insula and ACC

Marsh et al (2013)

Implicit Empathy Paradigms - used fMRI to show that children/adolescents with psychopathic traits and conduct problems showed reduced neural activity in response to stimuli depicting physical distress in the ACC, dorsal insula and amugdala

Gu et al (2010)

Implicit Empathy Paradigms - used the same paradigm as Jackson et al - but measured reaction times (rather than neural activity) to making a laterality judgement - judging the laterality of a painful stimulus was significantly slower than for a non painful stimulus (a stroop like effect)

Lamm et al (2016)

Models of Empathy: 3 facets 1. Mentalising: the ability to explicitly reason and draw inferences about mental states - cognitive empathy - perspective tasking - ToM 2. Experience sharing: the tendency to take on, or resonate with, or 'share' the emotions of others - affective empathy - shared self-other representations - emotional contagion 3. Prosocial Concern - the prosocial motivation to help others as a result of using one/both of the other facets to share/cognitively understand their emotions - empathetic motivation - sympathy - empathetic concern

Bird & Viding (2014)

Models of Empathy: Self to Other Model (SOME) Inputs: 1. Situation Understanding System - provides an estimate of the emotional state of another given their situation - stored knowledge, deductive reasoning, or associations - may recruit ToM 2. Affective Cue Classification System - performs low level perceptual classification (emotion pattern matching) of person-level cues signalling the affective state of another - may recruit MN system 2 representation systems required for empathy 1. ToM: represents the mental states of others within a propositional system, processes the self-other switch (if applicable) 2. Affective representation system: represents the current affective state of the self. A final component os the Self Other Switch which 1. Biases information processes by the input systems so that one's affective state is appropriate to the other (i.e. process other's situation and classify other's cues) 2. Tags the empathiser's current state as appropriate for the other (in the ToM system but not affective representation system) Definition of empathy: - when person A empathises with person B, their representation of person B's affective state in the ToM system is isomorphic to their state in their affective representation system AND they perceive this is due to person B's state.

Decety & Lamm (2006)

Models of shared pain - Bottom up: e.g. direct matching to allow direct emotion sharing, automatically activated by perceptual input (e.g. AI, mirror) - Top Down: executive processes, e.g. in PFC and cingulate serve to regulate cognition and emotion through selective attention and regulation - in addition, regardless of how shared representations are generated, there is a key role for self-other awareness, performed by the TPJ.

Rainville et al (1997)

Neural mechanisms for pain - used hypnotic suggestion to investigate pain pathways in the brain - hypnotic suggestion aimed at increasing or decreasing the subjective intensity of pain lead to increases/decreases in blood flow to S1 - hypnotic suggestion aimed at the affective modulation of pain unpleasantness led to specific modulation of ACC activity.

Price (2000)

Pain PAIN: an unpleasant sensory and emotional experience associated with actual or potential tissue damage, or described in terms of such damage.

Asymbolia

Pain without unpleasantness - results from ACC or insula lesions

Decety et al (2016)

Pain: Neural Mechanisms - there are 2 dimensions of pain, with distinct neural correlates. 1. Sensory Discriminative: perceived intensity, location and quality of pain - somatosensory cortices (S1 and S2) - posterior insular cortex (P1) 2. Affective Motivational: Perceived unpleasantness, emotions and motivation to alleviate the pain. - anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) - insular cortex - prefrontal cortex (PFC) the hypothalamus, amygdala and supplementary motor areas are responsible for arousal, autonomic and somatomotor activation

Rutgen et al (2015)

Placebo Analgesia Paradigms - used placebo analgesia to control for sensory stimulation while altering the psychological effects of pain in assessing shared representations - placebo analgesia reduces the amount of first hand pain experienced following the administration of an inactive compound promoted as a painkiller - compared self and other responses to pain - a second group were given opioid receptor agonist naltrexone to block placebo analgesia effects (and measure specificity) - placebo analgesia resulted in decreased self reported empathy and deceased AI and ACC activity to self and other pain - blocking placebo analgesia abolished the effects on first hand and other pain, by similar effect sizes - suggests that this gives support that the same neural and psychological processes are involved in first hand and other experiences of pain. LOGICAL FALLACY

Coll et al (2017)

Placebo Analgesia Paradigms - used the data from Rutgen et al (2015) to assess the relationship between self reported empathetic responses and emotional identificaiton - conducted a mediation analysis of the relationship between placebo analgesia on self reported empathy and emotion identification in the partner - the effect of the placebo analgesia manipulation on the empathetic response was fully mediated by the intensity of the pain identified in the partner (explained 93% of the effect) - suggests that the effect of the placebo manipulation was due to emotion identification, not affect sharing - an alternative feedback model where the empathetic response mediated the relationship between the placebo analgesia manipulation and emotion identification did not meet significance - suggests that emotion identification and affect sharing make independent contributions to empathy and must be considered separately.

Woo et al (2014)

Problems: Sensitivity of shared activations - used MVPA to show that shared activations between somatic pain and pain of social rejection stem from distinct underlying activation patterns, suggesting separate neural mechaniss - compared activations from experiencing heat an warmth pain and photos of ex partners and ex friends, and showed they are distinct

Lamm et al (2010)

Problems: Specificity of shared activations - showed that activity in ACC and aI was seen when medial students watched medical procedures such as pinpricks which only seemed aversive, but in reality were not painful to the recipient (e.g. as they were under anaesthetic)

Dazinger et al (2009)

Problems: Specifity of shared activations - showed that patients suffering from congenital insensitivity to pain and may not activate ACC/AI when in pain themselves, still activate ACC and AI when seeing others showing body parts in painful situations. - when viewing painful pictures, MCC activity was only present in controls, but left insula activity present in both participants. - pain intensity ratings to viewing body parts in painful situations were lower in CIP but not to facial expressions. - in the control group, arousal ratings but not pain intensity correlated with aMCC and AI, but neither correlated in CIP group. - empathy traits in CIP patients predicted vmPFC responses to somatosensory representations of others' pain and posterior cingulate responses to emotional representations - compensatory?

Coll et al (2017)

Redefining empathy - the current definition of empathy requires that the empathiser is in a similar affective state to the target (a matching state) - but: in cases where the empathiser judges the state of the of the target inaccurately, irrespective of if they share the same judged state, they do not meet the criteria for empathy - the definition is binary (match or no match) but there can be varying degrees of empathy - suggest that variances in empathetic responses could be split into individual differences in 1. Emotional Identification 2. Affect sharing (emotional contagion) - empathy is the product of these 2 measures

Lamm et al (2011)

Reviews of shared pain - conducted a meta-analysis of 32 studies of empathy for pain including picture and cue based studies - overlap in viewing pain in the self and others in 1. anterior insula 2. midcingulate cortex 3. anterior cingulate cortex - establish a crucial role for insula and anterior/mid cingulate cortex in empathy for pain, irrespective of the way empathy was induced. - however, different design types also activated distinct neural networks as well: 1. Cue based: vmPFC, STS, TPJ, posterior cingulate - generally associated with ToM but also self/referential processing - allows sharing of others state based on experience and knowledge. 2. Picture based: dl/dm PFC, IPL - associated with mirror neurons/action understanding - might allow prediction and understanding of the outcome of the shown situation to trigger inferences about the affective effects. Somatosensory areas: showed unspecific activation based on the perception of touch (painful and non painful stimuli), so not due to empathy - consistent with the view that affective but not sensory components of pain are shared during empathy.

Bernhadt & Singer (2012)

Reviews of shared pain - looked at the functions of the main brain structures in empathy 1. ACC: subjective value of affective experience, motivation and response selection - the motivational and premotor counterparts to the insula - affective, cognitive and motor control 2. AI: interoceptive experience, mapping internal and bodily states - integrates interoceptive (sensation), affective and cognitive information to generate a global feeling state - these 2 areas contain a distinctive class of single shaped neurons known as Van Economy neurons - have a large size and simple dendritic morphology - suitable for rapid communication between AI and ACC - allow fast integration of affective state, motivation, control and behaviour in dynamic situational contexts

Coll et al (2016)

Role of TPJ - modulated activity of TPJ using rDCS (anodal vs cathodal) and measured the effect on explicit and implicit empathy. - measured pain intensity ratings, EEG and SCR during observation of limbs receiving painful or non-painful stimulation (sensory) or individuals expressing pain without cuing the origin of this pain. - showed that tDCS decreased intensity of pain perceived by sensory and emotional-communicative cues, and the amplitude of the LPP component to emotional-communicative cues only. - stimulation didn't influence P2 and N200 components or SCR to pain cues, consistent with the fact that these are processed in the affective part of empathy that doesn't require the self-other distinction. - excitatory tDCS didn't influence either measure: possibly because people are too good at the task for inhibition of self-other representation to have an effect?

Bardi et al (2017)

Role of TPJ o Used tDCS to condition neural activity in the rTPJ. o Then analysed the corticospinal output indexed by MEPs by single-pulse TMS of the left M1 during action observation in the context of a conflict task (imitation inhibition). o Measuring MEPs allowed the measurement of concurrent activation of competing motor plans in the same trial: If tDCS mediated increased control (from TPJ stimulation) entails the attenuation of the external motor plan, then mirror activation per se should be reduced. However, if control is realised by modulating the task-relevant action representation, the mirror tendency should not be affected by TPJ stimulation and the instructed motor plan should be enhanced. Tested this by comparing congruent and incongruent movements and action execution condition (the observed stimulus is either performing a response or just a picture) o Showed that tDCS-mediated increased control did not suppress or reduce the effect of motor mirroring (congruency effect: incongruent - congruent not influenced by stimulation). - However, facilitating TPJ activity via anodal tDCS selectively enhanced the instructed motor plan (self-related representation): (congruency effect suppressed compared to sham). Suggests that the TPJ works by enhancing task-related representations (rather than inhibiting the conflicting response)

Mai et al (2016)

Self other distinction showed that cathodal stimulation of the rTPJ decreased accuracy of participants' mental states and emotion attribution in social vignettes, but not the accuracy of non-social judgements.

Zaki et al (2009)

Self report measures: Empathetic Accuracy task - found that empathetically accurate (vs inaccurate) judements were dependent on structures within the human MN system thought to be involved in shared sensorimotor representations (e.g. STS, mPFC)

Davis (2008)

Self report measures: Interpersonal Reactivity Index - measures empathy as a personality trait, assuming that everyone has a stable degree of empathy which can be measured using self-report or observer report measures - empathy is assumed to be the reactions of one individual to the observed experience of the other - 28 items on a 5 point Likert scale, generating scores on 4 subscales 1. Perspective Taking: the tendency to spontaneously adopt the psychological view of another (ToM?) 2. Fantasy: the tendency to transpose the self imaginatively into the feelings and actions of fictitious characters in books and movies 3. Empathetic Concern: other oriented feelings of sympathy and concern for unfortunate others (requires Self-other distinction) 4. Personal Distress: measures of self oriented feelings of personal anxiety and unease in tense interpersonal situations (no self other distinction)

Corradi Dell'Aqua et al (2016)

Sensitivity of shared activations subjected 19 participants to equally unpleasant painful and disgusting stimulations as well as unfair monetary treatments. • Subjected to either electrical or gustatory (painful/disgusting vs non ainful/non-disgusting) carefully matched for subjective unpleasantness. • In separate (other related trials) they saw a befriended confederate receiving equivalent electric or gustatory stimuli. • (through classic 'empathy for pain' paradigm). • Finally, performed an Ultimatum game where they faced unknown people who proposed unfair or modertately fair economic transactions to the self or the participants. • Asessed whether activity patterns evoked in AI/aMCC by first person painful experiences were similar or dissimilar to those evoked by first person disgust. • Then assessed whether response patterns elicited by first-person experiences were shared with those elicited by vicarious pain/disgust, as well as unfairness. • Explored the nature of shared information: o If AI/mACC process others' affective states in terms of modality specific features, then activity patterns evoked by a first person event should generalise to same not different modality. o If AI/mACC process others' affective state in terms of modality independent features than activity patterns evoked by a first-person event should generalise to vicarious experiences of another modality. • Showed that left AI and mACC disclose activity patterns which were shared between different modalities, but also between first hand and affective aversive experience, pointing to common coding of affective unpleasantness. o Supramodal representation of negative affect o AI/mACC might respond to the unpleasantness of events and therefore mediate signals of negative valence or alternatively code for their arousal or perceptual salience. • However, right AI disclosed activity patterns which were specific for the events' sensory properties and the target of the experience. • Shows domain general and domain specific coding in AI and mACC

Singer et al (2004)

Shared Pain imaging studies - invented this paradigm as an objective measure of empathy - participants receive a shock before the study to 'calibrate' responses - compare haemodynamic response triggered by an arrow indicating painful stimulation of the female partner or self will occur - showed that brain areas involved in the affective components of pain (un/pleasantness) were coactivated by the sensation of pain and the observation of others' pain 1. bilateral anterior insula 2. dorsal ACC 3. cerebellum 4. brainstem, - self report measures of empathy showed higher overlap in these areas in individual ho rated themselves to be higher in empathy.

Singer et al (2006)

Shared Pain imaging studies - used the same format to investigate how empathetic responses are modulated by failrness - prisoner's dilemma format; given money, donate to another person (tripled) who then have the option to return some - compared activity when receiving money from a fair or unfair players, followed by the shared pain paradigm - demonstrated overlapping empathy related activation to self and other pain for fair players in frontoinsular and ACC - these responses were reduced in males to unfair players, who instead showed increased NA activity (reward related) to unfair players in pain, which correlated with an increased desire for revenge - suggests that empathetic responses depend on the valuation of others, and supports altruistic punishment

Santiesban et al (2012)

TPJ and Self other Distinction - showed that anodal tDCS to TPJ enhanced imitative and perspective taking performance - prompted an enhanced representation of the self relative to the other in the imitative control task (imitation inhibition) - promoted a enhanced representation of the other relative to the self in the perspective taking task (director task) - however didn't influence the ability to attribute mental states to others, shown by no interaction between stimulation of the TPJ and target (self vs other) and judgement type (mental vs physical) when making judgements about the self and other - the self referential task devoid of the self other representation requirement was not influenced by TPJ stimulation - suggests that the TPJ is involved in controlling the self and other representation

Brass et al (2005)

TPJ and Self other Distinction - showed that imitation inhibition and ToM tasks recruit mPFC and TPJ - suggest that these areas are involved in decoupling of the self and other RIGHT TPJ: determines if performed by self or other mPFC: manages and enforces motor representations and actions as a result

Sowden et al (2015)

TPJ and Self other Distinction - showed that tDCS to the TPJ improved lie detection - used a video-mediated lie detection task comparing lie detection ability in opinion consistent and inconsistent trials - when tasing the veracity of the opinion of statements by senders, participants are significantly more accurate when the view expressed by the sender was consistent, rather than inconsistent, with their own - this is the opinion inconsistency effect and indicates self-other interference in lie detection - showed that tDCS to the TPJ improved lie detection on inconsistent trials, showing that TPJ stimulation enhanced the ability to suppress one's own option t enhance the opinion of the other

Lamm et al (2007)

Top down influences - compared fMRI responses in participants viewing pictures of needle injections into a human hand, and of tissue biopsies (performed with a visual needle) on anaesthetised human hands, and asked to rate the intensity or affective consequences (unpleasantness) of painful stimulation. - Showed that perceiving pain in others activated the affective motivational (dorsal and ventral aMCC, bilateral anterior insula) and sensory-discriminative (SMG) aspects of the pain matrix. - Activity in somatosensory areas was specifically enhanced when participants evaluated the sensory consequences of pain. - However, non-painful injections also activated the pain matrix, suggesting an automatic affective response. - Comparing the 2 conditions (sensory versus unpleasantness), showed that focussing on pain intensity increased signal in S1 and lateral premotor cortex (somatosensory representations involved in anticipatory consequences of pain), while pain unpleasantness did not lead to significant changes in any brain regions. - Then compared the biopsy and injection condition to assess the brain areas involved in the cognitive re-appraisal of the automatic response: - The difference between numbed vs non-numbed hands was reduced for unpleasantness ratings, because biopsies were still considered unpleasant for the target. - Showed that OFC activity was associated with re-evaluating the seemingly averse yet neutral biopsy stimulus. - Activity in the rTPJ and dorsal mPFC was linked to the self-other distinction and self-awareness.

Gu & Han (2007)

Top down influences on empathy - exposed participants to pictures of painful stimulations versus neutral stimulations. - when evaluating the painful consequences of these situations, showed activation in large parts of the pain matrix (i.e., shared representations). - however, when instead asked to count the number of hands in the picture, no activation in insular or cingulate cortices was observed (suggesting some top-down influences).

Fan & Han (2008)

Top down influences on empathy - showed participants real pictures or cartoon depictions of hands in painful or neutral situations and asked participants to either judge the intensity of the pain experienced or to count the number of hands present in the stimuli. - showed an early effect of pain in the N1 and N2 component that was not influenced by task demands and a later effect of pain in the P3 component that was modulated by task requirements. - The authors interpreted these results as the presence of an early automatic response indexing emotional sharing and a late response indexing the cognitive evaluation of others pain

Lamm et al (2007)

Top down influences on empathy - showed participants videos of patients undergoing painful auditory treatment, either by imaging they were in the patients place (imagine-self) or by focussing on the patients' feelings and affective expressions (imagine-other). - showed higher personal distress and less empathic concern in the imagine-self than imagine-other. - this was associated with stronger responses in brain regions associated with the motivational-affective dimensions of pain: bilateral medial and anterior insular, amygdala, action response regions.

De Guzman et al (2015)

Training self other distinction - gave participants imitation inhibition training and assessed empathy by 1. Single pulse TMS to assess corticospinal responses to pain observation - training led to increased corticospinal empathy (increased MEP inhibition when observing painful vs tactile stimulation) 2. Explicit, self repot measures of empathy - imitation inhibition training led to increased explicit self report measures of empathy, 24 hours after training - suggests that a common self-other process contributes to imitation inhibition as well as explicit and implicit empathy

Santiesban et al (2012)

Training the self other distinciton - attempted to train ToM and perspective taking via imitation inhibition - 24 hours of imitation or imitation inhibition training (or inhibitory control e.g. Stroop- EF but no imitation) - then tested on 1. imitation inhibition 2. strange stories 3. director task - found no improvement with training on strange stories (but less sensitive), however perspective taking ability in the director task improved specifically with imitation ihibition - suggests a common self-other mechanisms,s in imitation inhibition and ToM