Research Center of Mental Health Education, Faculty of Psychology, Southwest University, Chongqing 400715, China.
Key Laboratory of Cognition and Personality of the Ministry of Education, Faculty of Psychology, Southwest University, Chongqing 400715, China.
Soc Cogn Affect Neurosci. 2024 Oct 4;19(1). doi: 10.1093/scan/nsae061.
Understanding the mechanisms behind the interaction of empathy for pain (EfP) and working memory (WM), particularly how they are influenced by social factors like perceived social distance (SD), is vital for comprehending how humans dynamically adapt to the complexities of social life. However, there is very little known about these mechanisms. Accordingly, we recruited 116 healthy participants to investigate the bidirectional influence and electrophysiological responses between WM and EfP, including the role of SD. Our research results revealed that the interaction between WM load and SD significantly influenced the processing of EfP. Specifically, high WM load and distant SD facilitated early processing of EfP. Conversely, low WM load and close SD promoted late processing of EfP. Furthermore, the interaction between EfP and SD significantly influenced the performance of ongoing WM tasks. Specifically, the kin's pain, compared to kin's nonpain, improved the participant's performance on low-load WM tasks; however, it diminished the participant's performance on tasks with high WM load. Overall, these results provide evidence at both behavioral and neural levels for the mutual influence of WM and EfP during the same temporal process, and SD emerged as a crucial moderating factor during these mutual influences.
理解同理心疼痛（EfP）和工作记忆（WM）相互作用背后的机制，特别是它们如何受到社会距离（SD）等社会因素的影响，对于理解人类如何动态适应复杂的社会生活至关重要。然而，这些机制知之甚少。因此，我们招募了 116 名健康参与者，以研究 WM 和 EfP 之间的双向影响和电生理反应，包括 SD 的作用。我们的研究结果表明，WM 负荷和 SD 之间的相互作用显著影响 EfP 的处理。具体来说，高 WM 负荷和远距离 SD 促进 EfP 的早期处理。相反，低 WM 负荷和近距离 SD 促进 EfP 的晚期处理。此外，EfP 和 SD 之间的相互作用显著影响正在进行的 WM 任务的表现。具体来说，与亲属的非疼痛相比，亲属的疼痛改善了参与者在低负荷 WM 任务上的表现；然而，它降低了参与者在高 WM 负荷任务上的表现。总的来说，这些结果在行为和神经水平上为 WM 和 EfP 在同一时间过程中的相互影响提供了证据，SD 成为这些相互影响中的一个关键调节因素。
