Research Center for Brain and Cognitive Science, Chongqing Normal University, Chongqing 401331, China.
Key Laboratory of Applied Psychology, Chongqing Normal University, Chongqing 401331, China.
Soc Cogn Affect Neurosci. 2024 Oct 30;19(1). doi: 10.1093/scan/nsae074.
Humans live in collective groups and are highly sensitive to perceived emotions of a group, including the pain of a group. However, previous research on empathy for pain mainly focused on the suffering of a single individual ("individual empathy for pain"), with limited understanding of empathy for pain to a group ("group empathy for pain"). Thus, the present study aimed to investigate the cognitive neural mechanisms of group empathy for pain in the auditory modality. The study produced group painful voices to simulate the painful voices made by a group, and recruited 34 participants to explore differences between their responses to group painful voices and individual painful voices using the event-related potential (ERP) techniques. The results revealed that group painful voices were rated with higher pain intensity, more negative affective valence, and larger P2 amplitudes than individual painful voices. Furthermore, trait affective empathy scores of the participants were positively correlated with their P2 amplitudes of group painful voices. The results suggested that the group empathy for pain may facilitate affective empathetic processing in auditory modality.
人类生活在集体群体中，对群体感知到的情绪高度敏感，包括群体的痛苦。然而，之前关于疼痛共情的研究主要集中在对单个个体的痛苦（“个体对疼痛的共情”），对群体的疼痛共情（“群体对疼痛的共情”）的理解有限。因此，本研究旨在探讨听觉模式下群体疼痛共情的认知神经机制。该研究产生了群体痛苦的声音来模拟群体发出的痛苦声音，并招募了 34 名参与者，使用事件相关电位（ERP）技术探索他们对群体痛苦声音和个体痛苦声音的反应差异。结果表明，群体痛苦的声音被评定为具有更高的疼痛强度、更消极的情感效价和更大的 P2 振幅，而个体痛苦的声音则没有。此外，参与者的特质情感共情得分与他们对群体痛苦声音的 P2 振幅呈正相关。结果表明，群体疼痛共情可能有助于听觉模式下的情感共情加工。
