Vistoli Damien, Achim Amélie M, Lavoie Marie-Audrey, Jackson Philip L
École de psychologie, Université Laval, Québec, QC, Canada; Centre de recherche de l'Institut Universitaire en Santé Mentale de Québec, Québec, QC, Canada; Centre Interdisciplinaire de Recherche en Réadaptation et Intégration Sociale, Québec, QC, Canada.
Centre de recherche de l'Institut Universitaire en Santé Mentale de Québec, Québec, QC, Canada; Département de Psychiatrie et neurosciences, Faculté de médecine, Université Laval, Québec, QC, Canada.
Neuropsychologia. 2016 May;85:327-36. doi: 10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2016.03.020. Epub 2016 Mar 22.
Empathy refers to our capacity to share and understand the emotional states of others. It relies on two main processes according to existing models: an effortless affective sharing process based on neural resonance and a more effortful cognitive perspective-taking process enabling the ability to imagine and understand how others feel in specific situations. Until now, studies have focused on factors influencing the affective sharing process but little is known about those influencing the cognitive perspective-taking process and the related brain activations during vicarious pain. In the present fMRI study, we used the well-known physical pain observation task to examine whether the visual perspective can influence, in a bottom-up way, the brain regions involved in taking others' cognitive perspective to attribute their level of pain. We used a pseudo-dynamic version of this classic task which features hands in painful or neutral daily life situations while orthogonally manipulating: (1) the visual perspective with which hands were presented (first-person versus third-person conditions) and (2) the explicit instructions to imagine oneself or an unknown person in those situations (Self versus Other conditions). The cognitive perspective-taking process was investigated by comparing Other and Self conditions. When examined across both visual perspectives, this comparison showed no supra-threshold activation. Instead, the Other versus Self comparison led to a specific recruitment of the bilateral temporo-parietal junction when hands were presented according to a first-person (but not third-person) visual perspective. The present findings identify the visual perspective as a factor that modulates the neural activations related to cognitive perspective-taking during vicarious pain and show that this complex cognitive process can be influenced by perceptual stages of information processing.
同理心是指我们分享和理解他人情绪状态的能力。根据现有模型，它依赖于两个主要过程：一个基于神经共振的轻松情感分享过程，以及一个更费力的认知换位思考过程，该过程使人能够想象和理解他人在特定情况下的感受。到目前为止，研究主要集中在影响情感分享过程的因素上，但对于影响认知换位思考过程以及替代性疼痛期间相关大脑激活的因素却知之甚少。在本功能磁共振成像研究中，我们使用了著名的身体疼痛观察任务，以检验视觉视角是否能以自下而上的方式影响参与对他人疼痛程度进行认知换位思考的大脑区域。我们使用了这个经典任务的伪动态版本，其特点是手处于痛苦或中性的日常生活情境中，同时进行正交操作：（1）呈现手的视觉视角（第一人称与第三人称条件），以及（2）在这些情境中想象自己或一个陌生人的明确指示（自我与他人条件）。通过比较他人和自我条件来研究认知换位思考过程。当在两种视觉视角下进行检查时，这种比较没有显示出超阈值激活。相反，当根据第一人称（而非第三人称）视觉视角呈现手时，他人与自我的比较导致双侧颞顶联合区的特定激活。本研究结果确定视觉视角是在替代性疼痛期间调节与认知换位思考相关的神经激活的一个因素，并表明这一复杂的认知过程会受到信息处理的感知阶段的影响。
