Abstract
Facial mimicry has been suggested to be a behavioral index for emotional empathy. The present study is the first to investigate the link between facial muscle activity and empathy for pain by facial electromyographic (EMG) recording while observers watched videos depicting real-life painful events. Three types of visual stimulus were used: an intact painful scene and arm-only (needle injection) and face only (painful expression) scenes. Enhanced EMG activity of the corrugator supercilii (CS) and zygomaticus major (ZM) muscles was found when observers viewed others in pain, supporting a unique pain expression that is distinct from the expression of basic emotions. In the intact video stimulus condition, CS activity was correlated positively with the empathic concern score and ZM activity, suggesting facial mimicry mediated empathy for pain. Cluster analysis of facial EMG responses revealed markedly different patterns among stimulus types, including response category, ratio, and temporal dynamics, indicating greater ecological validity of the intact scene in eliciting pain empathy as compared with partial scenes. This study is the first to quantitatively describe pain empathy in terms of facial EMG data. It may provide important evidence for facial mimicry as a behavioral indicator of pain empathy.
Highlights
The contradictory results may be due to that pain is different from basic emotions in that it is often caused by an actual noxious stimulation, and may be underrepresented by facial expression only
Two categories of stimulus are often used in pain empathy studies: injured body parts and facial expressions of pain5,6,39–42, and very few studies of empathy have involved the presentation of whole-body scenes to observers9, and no study has compared the effects of such scenes with those of injured body part and painful expression stimuli in eliciting empathic responses
Based on self-reported ratings and facial pain expressions and after matching on the basis of demographic characteristics, 20 of 51 video clips from 8 men and 12 women were selected as target stimuli for the formal experiment
Summary
Emotional mimicry has been considered a special subset of behavioral mimicry, which is defined as an automatic, matched motor response to another person’s behavior13 The mechanisms underlying this link between perception and behavior involve a shared representation network, i.e., activation of overlapping brain areas during both motor action and action observation. Mailhot et al reported no specific facial response to the viewing of painful faces when exploring the priming effect of empathic processes on observers’ self-pain. Mailhot et al reported no specific facial response to the viewing of painful faces when exploring the priming effect of empathic processes on observers’ self-pain38 It remains unclear whether people mimic others’ painful facial expression when facing them in pain. Two categories of stimulus are often used in pain empathy studies: injured body parts and facial expressions of pain, and very few studies of empathy have involved the presentation of whole-body scenes to observers, and no study has compared the effects of such scenes with those of injured body part and painful expression stimuli in eliciting empathic responses
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