Abstract
Humans have a natural ability to understand the emotions and feelings of others, whether one actually witnesses the situation of another, perceives it from a photograph, reads about it in a fiction book, or merely imagines it. This is the phenomenon of empathy, which requires us to mentally represent external information to experience the emotions of others. Studies have shown that individuals with high empathy have high anterior insula and adjacent frontal operculum activation when they are aware of negative emotions in others. As a negative emotion, disgust processing involves insula coupling. What are the neurophysiological characteristics for regulating the levels of empathy and disgust? To answer this question, we collected electroencephalogram microstates (EEG-ms) of 196 college students at rest and used the Disgust Scale and Interpersonal Reactivity Index. The results showed that: (1) there was a significant positive correlation between empathy and disgust sensitivity; (2) the empathy score and the intensity of transition possibility between EEG-ms C and D were significantly positively correlated; and (3) the connection strength between the transition possibility of EEG-ms C and D could adjust the relationship between the disgust sensitivity score and the empathy score. This study provides new neurophysiological characteristics for an understanding of the regulate relationship between empathy and disgust and provides a new perspective on emotion and attention.
Highlights
Scientists believe that empathy is an important part of human communication that puts us at our best in a world of diversity
We analyzed the correlations among the disgust sensitivity score, empathy score, and the four states of current duration (CD), occurrence, contribution, and transition possibility
We found that the connection between microstates class C and class D under transition possibility was positively correlated with the empathy score
Summary
Scientists believe that empathy is an important part of human communication that puts us at our best in a world of diversity. The empathetic ability to share the feelings of others results in a better understanding of the present and future mental states and actions of the people around us, which may promote prosocial behavior. Scholars who support this theory have found that patients with medial pre-frontal lobe injury have significantly lower self-reported cognitive empathetic ability compared with health control and poor performance in emotional recognition and theoretical psychological tasks (Singer et al, 2004; Shamay-Tsoory, 2009). Francesca’s experiment (Fiori et al, 2017), suggested that high empathy and heightened bodily self-awareness might increase a self-centered perspective and limit altruistic acts
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