School of Management, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, China.
Neuroimage. 2011 Feb 1;54(3):2472-80. doi: 10.1016/j.neuroimage.2010.10.045. Epub 2010 Oct 23.
A growing number of studies in exploring empathic modulation have revealed the neural substrates of how social stimuli are represented in the human brain, especially the pain of others. The empathic response of observing other's gains and losses, however, remains not clearly characterized. In the current study, we carried out two experiments with a gamble task to investigate how the effects of interpersonal familiarity and self-participation work on modulating the temporal neural response towards gain and loss of a friend or a stranger using scalp-recorded event-related potentials (ERPs). The electrophysiological data show an increased amplitude of the P300 when observing a friend's performance compared to strangers playing the game in both two experiments. But the distinction of differentiated feedback-related negativity (d-FRN) between friends and strangers was only observed when the player was not involved in the game. These results indicated that the participants exerted more motivational relevance toward their friends than strangers, but the participants' empathic response toward friends was only salient when they were not involved in the gamble directly. Therefore, both familiarity and self-engagement are factors that influence the empathy towards others, complementing the recent research on empathic modulation.
越来越多的研究探索了同理心的调节作用，揭示了社会刺激在人类大脑中是如何被表征的，尤其是他人的痛苦。然而，对于观察他人得失时的同理心反应，仍未得到明确的描述。在本研究中，我们进行了两项带有赌博任务的实验，旨在探讨人际熟悉度和自我参与如何调节对朋友或陌生人的得失的时间神经反应，使用头皮记录的事件相关电位（ERPs）。电生理数据表明，在两项实验中，当观察到朋友的表现时，与观察陌生人玩游戏相比，P300 的振幅增加。但是，只有当玩家不参与游戏时，才会观察到朋友和陌生人之间的反馈相关负波（d-FRN）的差异。这些结果表明，参与者对朋友的动机相关性比对陌生人更强，但只有当参与者不直接参与赌博时，他们对朋友的同理心反应才会凸显出来。因此，熟悉度和自我参与都是影响对他人同理心的因素，这补充了最近关于同理心调节的研究。
