Abstract
ABSTRACTPeople with mirror-touch synaesthesia (MTS) report tactile sensations on their own body when seeing another person being touched. Although this has been associated with heightened empathy and emotion perception, this finding has been disputed. Here, we conduct two experiments to explore this relationship further. In Experiment 1, we develop a new screening measure for MTS. We show that MTS is related to vicarious experiences more generally, but is not a simple exaggerated version of normality. For example, people with MTS report videos of scratching as “touch” rather than “itchiness” and have localized sensations when watching others in pain. In Experiment 2, we show that MTS is related to increased emotional empathy to others and better ability to read facial expressions of emotion, but other measures of empathy are normal. In terms of theoretical models, we propose that this is more consistent with a qualitative difference in the ability to selectively inhibit the other and attend to the self.
Highlights
Our capacity to share the experiences of others may be a critical part of social behaviour
A score of 7/14 or above gives a prevalence that is close (2.1%) to the objectively verified prevalence of 1.6% reported by Banissy et al (2009) and much lower than the ~10% of people who agreed to having mirror-touch synaesthesia (MTS) when answering a single question on a Likert scale in that same study
Based on previous findings, we hypothesized that there would be a positive association between MTS and facial expression recognition (Banissy et al, 2011), a positive association between Emotional Reactivity on the Empathy Quotient (EQ) (Banissy & Ward, 2007), a negative association between MTS and Social Skills on the EQ (Baron-Cohen et al, 2016), and a positive association between incongruent and no-touch trials (RT and/or errors) and MTS score on the visuo-tactile interference test (Banissy & Ward, 2007; Banissy et al, 2009)
Summary
Our capacity to share the experiences of others may be a critical part of social behaviour. One process thought to be important for this is the ability to co-represent the experiences of other people by matching the observed state onto representations of our own first-hand experience – a process commonly referred to as simulation or mirroring Keysers, Kaas, & Gazzola, 2010) This is typically thought of as an implicit form of simulation in that people do not report any experience of touch. At a mechanistic level it is far less clear how MTS should be interpreted Is it an extreme form of normal empathy, or a qualitatively different form of empathy? Are people who have a reportable shared state (like in MTS) better at empathising (or social cognition more generally) relative to people who have an implicit simulation of another’s state or, no simulation at all? We determine whether people with MTS really do have enhanced socio-cognitive abilities, a claim that has recently been disputed (Baron-Cohen, Robson, Lai, & Allison, 2016), and we determine whether MTS should be considered as an extreme end-point of normality
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