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Brain Science Advances 2019, 5(4): 256-264 https://doi.org/10.26599/BSA.2019.9050022
Review Article | Open Access | Issue | Published: 18 May 2020

Differences between empathy for face and body pain: Cognitive and neural responses

Show Author's Information Xiong LiⅠ,  Yinya ZhangⅠ,  Binyang XiangⅠ,  Jing MengⅠ( )
Key Laboratory of Applied Psychology, Chongqing Normal University, Chongqing 401331, China
Keywords:
empathy, empathy for pain, face, cognitive and neural mechanisms
Cite this article:
Li X, Zhang Y, Xiang B, et al. Differences between empathy for face and body pain: Cognitive and neural responses. Brain Science Advances, 2019, 5(4): 256-264. https://doi.org/10.26599/BSA.2019.9050022
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Abstract Full text About this article

Empathy for pain is a hotspot in the field of empathy research because of its specific cognitive and neural mechanism. Currently, studies of empathy for pain can be classified into two categories based on the body regions receiving the painful stimulus, i.e., empathy for face pain and empathy for body pain, which conveys painful information based on individuals’ faces or body parts, respectively. Although the existing evidence revealed differences between these two kinds of pain empathy regarding the underlying cognitive and neural mechanisms, the current studies tend to confuse these findings. Therefore, we summarized the differences between empathy for face and body pain, mainly regarding the behavioral reactivity tendency, brain activations, and electrophysiological (EEG) signals. These differences probably stem from the fact that the human face contains more emotional information, while other body parts contain more perceptual information. Thus, future studies should identify the distinctions between empathy for face and body pain, to explore further how empathy for face pain is affected by the facial information of others and focus on empathy for face pain in individuals with psychopathological disorders. Furthermore, the specific reasons for these distinctions and their underlying neuromechanisms deserve to be further reviewed.


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About this article

Differences between empathy for face and body pain: Cognitive and neural responses

Show Author's information Xiong LiⅠ, Yinya ZhangⅠ, Binyang XiangⅠ, Jing MengⅠ( )
Key Laboratory of Applied Psychology, Chongqing Normal University, Chongqing 401331, China

Abstract

Empathy for pain is a hotspot in the field of empathy research because of its specific cognitive and neural mechanism. Currently, studies of empathy for pain can be classified into two categories based on the body regions receiving the painful stimulus, i.e., empathy for face pain and empathy for body pain, which conveys painful information based on individuals’ faces or body parts, respectively. Although the existing evidence revealed differences between these two kinds of pain empathy regarding the underlying cognitive and neural mechanisms, the current studies tend to confuse these findings. Therefore, we summarized the differences between empathy for face and body pain, mainly regarding the behavioral reactivity tendency, brain activations, and electrophysiological (EEG) signals. These differences probably stem from the fact that the human face contains more emotional information, while other body parts contain more perceptual information. Thus, future studies should identify the distinctions between empathy for face and body pain, to explore further how empathy for face pain is affected by the facial information of others and focus on empathy for face pain in individuals with psychopathological disorders. Furthermore, the specific reasons for these distinctions and their underlying neuromechanisms deserve to be further reviewed.

Keywords: empathy, empathy for pain, face, cognitive and neural mechanisms

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Publication history
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Publication history

Received: 31 October 2019
Revised: 28 November 2019
Accepted: 06 December 2019
Published: 18 May 2020
Issue date: December 2019

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© The authors 2019

Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the Project Commissioned by the 13th Five-year Plan of Chongqing Education Science in 2019 (No. 2019-WT-28).

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Creative Commons Non Commercial CC BY-NC: This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 License (http://www.creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/) which permits non-commercial use, reproduction and distribution of the work without further permission provided the original work is attributed as specified on the SAGE and Open Access pages (https://us.sagepub.com/en-us/nam/open-access-at-sage)

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