Dear students,

The organizers of the following seminar invite all AEPS students to participate. 

Federica Meconi, Dipartimento di Psicologia e Scienze Cognitive, Università di Trento

Referencing the self in empathy for pain

Empathy is the perception of the other in the self. In this talk, I explore different neuroscientific techniques to examine how the sense of self influences our ability to empathise.

In one study, I leveraged an affective touch paradigm by stimulating C-tactile (CT) fibres at optimal and non-optimal speeds to test participants’ perception of their bodily self. This was followed by an empathy task that tested participants’ perception of the other. The results showed that a good perception of the self was associated with a good perception of the other, suggesting that the self serves as a reference for empathy.

Studies have shown that empathy often draws upon individuals’ autobiographical memories (AM), the collection of experiences that shape a unitary and integrated narrative of the self. According to these studies, people use their narrative self as a reference to build an accurate representation of others’ inner states. However, using one’s own AM as a reference to understand the others can rather hinder empathy in certain circumstances, such as when the observer’s experience differs from that of the empathy target.

To explore this, I used electroencephalography (EEG) to measure participants’ empathic responses to scenarios involving intense physical pain. The targets were described as either pain-sensitive (healthy, like the participants) or pain-insensitive (due to a medical condition). Participants reported lower empathy for pain-insensitive targets, regardless of whether they themselves had experienced similar pain. Event-related potential (ERP) analyses revealed late stage differences in neural responses to sensitive and insensitive targets, which positively correlated with individual differences in empathy rates. Multivariate pattern analysis indicated that these differences were linked to participants shifting from a first-person to a third-person perspective. Results indicated that AM reactivation flexibly supports empathy by enabling observers to shift perspective when direct experiential overlap is lacking, showing the dynamic role of AM and perspective taking in empathic processes.

Overall, these findings shed light on how the perception and reliance on the self shape empathic understanding.

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Mercoledì 28 maggio 2025, ore 11:00.

Sala Lauree del Dipartimento di Psicologia, Building U6/Agorà

For further information:

Prof Ermanno Quadrelli, ermanno.quadrelli@unimib.it