Research Center for Intelligent Society and Governance, Research Institute of Interdisciplinary Innovation, Zhejiang Lab, 1818# Wenyi West Road, Hangzhou, 311121, PR China.
Laboratory of Applied Brain and Cognitive Sciences, School of Business and Management, Shanghai International Studies University, 550# Dalian West Road, Shanghai, 200083, PR China; School of Business and Management, Shanghai International Studies University, 550# Dalian West Road, Shanghai, 200083, PR China.
Neuropsychologia. 2022 Nov 5;176:108369. doi: 10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2022.108369. Epub 2022 Sep 24.
Empathy plays an essential role in determining how we understand and respond to others' emotional experiences. Previous studies have mainly focused on the influencing factors of physical pain and monetary loss empathy, as well as on their effects on subsequent feelings. However, little is known about social pain empathy and its influence on subsequent feelings, and the role of personal trait empathy. In this study, we performed Cyberball Games and gambling tasks to explore the effect of social exclusion empathy on subsequent feelings for gambling outcomes (others' losses and gains) by analyzing the brain activity of excluded and non-excluded players at the gambling outcome feedback stage. It was found that both feedback-related negativity (FRN) and theta-band oscillatory are more negative for loss outcome than gain for the excluded players, while these effects cannot be found for the non-excluded players. Furthermore, we only observed a larger P300 amplitude in the gain outcome than that of loss, regardless of the players' role. More interestingly, we found state social pain empathy is negatively correlated with the d-FRN amplitude under non-excluded conditions, while trait empathy is positively correlated with P300 amplitude regardless of the players' role. These results provide insight into the different roles of state social pain empathy and trait empathy on subsequent gambling outcomes. Furthermore, different from previous studies, the current results show that d-FRN could reflect the state empathy discrepancy rather than the biomarker of state empathy.
同理心在决定我们如何理解和回应他人的情感体验方面起着至关重要的作用。先前的研究主要集中在身体疼痛和金钱损失同理心的影响因素上，以及它们对后续感受的影响。然而，对于社会痛苦同理心及其对后续感受的影响，以及个人特质同理心的作用，我们知之甚少。在这项研究中，我们通过分析被排斥和未被排斥玩家在赌博结果反馈阶段的大脑活动，进行了 Cyberball 游戏和赌博任务，以探讨社会排斥同理心对随后对赌博结果（他人的损失和收益）的感受的影响。结果发现，对于被排斥的玩家来说，与损失结果相比，反馈相关负波（FRN）和θ波段振荡对于损失结果更为消极，而对于未被排斥的玩家则无法发现这些影响。此外，我们只观察到在获得结果时 P300 振幅大于损失结果，而与玩家的角色无关。更有趣的是，我们发现，在未被排斥的情况下，状态社会痛苦同理心与 d-FRN 振幅呈负相关，而特质同理心与 P300 振幅呈正相关，而与玩家的角色无关。这些结果为理解状态社会痛苦同理心和特质同理心对随后的赌博结果的不同作用提供了深入了解。此外，与先前的研究不同，目前的结果表明，d-FRN 可以反映状态同理心的差异，而不是状态同理心的生物标志物。
