Abstract
Social and affective relations may shape empathy to others’ affective states. Previous studies also revealed that people tend to form very different mental representations of stimuli on the basis of their physical distance. In this regard, embodied cognition and embodied simulation propose that different physical distances between individuals activate different interpersonal processing modes, such that close physical distance tends to activate the interpersonal processing mode typical of socially and affectively close relationships. In Experiment 1, two groups of participants were administered a pain decision task involving upright and inverted face stimuli painfully or neutrally stimulated, and we monitored their neural empathic reactions by means of event-related potentials (ERPs) technique. Crucially, participants were presented with face stimuli of one of two possible sizes in order to manipulate retinal size and perceived physical distance, roughly corresponding to the close and far portions of social distance. ERPs modulations compatible with an empathic reaction were observed only for the group exposed to face stimuli appearing to be at a close social distance from the participants. This reaction was absent in the group exposed to smaller stimuli corresponding to face stimuli observed from a far social distance. In Experiment 2, one different group of participants was engaged in a match-to-sample task involving the two-size upright face stimuli of Experiment 1 to test whether the modulation of neural empathic reaction observed in Experiment 1 could be ascribable to differences in the ability to identify faces of the two different sizes. Results suggested that face stimuli of the two sizes could be equally identifiable. In line with the Construal Level and Embodied Simulation theoretical frameworks, we conclude that perceived physical distance may shape empathy as well as social and affective distance.
Highlights
Humans are endowed with an extraordinary ability to share and understand the affective states of others, and this is vital as it allows appropriate social interactions and relationships with others
In Experiment 1, we expected to observe a moderating effect on empathic event-related potentials (ERPs) reactions as a function of the perceived physical distance of the faces, such that the group of participants exposed to faces perceived as more distant would have manifested a lower magnitude of these neural empathic reactions when compared to the group of participants exposed to faces perceived as closer
In order to test this hypothesis, we implemented a between-subjects experimental design (Experiment 1) in which we manipulated the perceived physical distance of upright and inverted faces pricked by a syringe or touched by a Q-tip
Summary
Humans are endowed with an extraordinary ability to share and understand the affective states of others, and this is vital as it allows appropriate social interactions and relationships with others. These concentric “virtual” zones around the individual’s body may vary according to different factors, such as the culture or the gender of the individuals, but the general principle according to which a relationship exists between the degree of intimacy between two individuals and the physical distance that tends to settle during their interaction is a constant element independent of other factors (Hall, 1966) These considerations on the direct relationship between physical and psychological distance led us to hypothesize that empathy toward others’ pain could be modulated on the basis of the physical distance between the observer and the individual subjected to a pain stimulation, just as happens for the social and affective distance (Singer et al, 2004, 2006; Xu et al, 2009; Avenanti et al, 2010; Sessa et al, 2014a). In order to investigate this possibility, in Experiment 2, a new group of participants was engaged in a behavioral match-to-sample task involving the two-size upright face stimuli of Experiment 1
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