Reorienting Of Attention Research Articles

Tai Chi Practice Buffers Aging Effects in Functional Brain Connectivity.

Tai Chi (TC) practice has been shown to improve both cognitive and physical function in older adults. However, the neural mechanisms underlying the benefits of TC remain unclear. Our primary aims are to explore whether distinct age-related and TC-practice-related relationships can be identified with respect to either temporal or spatial (within/between-network connectivity) differences. This cross-sectional study examined recurrent neural network dynamics, employing an adaptive, data-driven thresholding approach to source-localized resting-state EEG data in order to identify meaningful connections across time-varying graphs, using both temporal and spatial features derived from a hidden Markov model (HMM). Mann-Whitney U tests assessed between-group differences in temporal and spatial features by age and TC practice using either healthy younger adult controls (YACs, n = 15), healthy older adult controls (OACs, n = 15), or Tai Chi older adult practitioners (TCOAs, n = 15). Our results showed that aging is associated with decreased within-network and between-network functional connectivity (FC) across most brain networks. Conversely, TC practice appears to mitigate these age-related declines, showing increased FC within and between networks in older adults who practice TC compared to non-practicing older adults. These findings suggest that TC practice may abate age-related declines in neural network efficiency and stability, highlighting its potential as a non-pharmacological intervention for promoting healthy brain aging. This study furthers the triple-network model, showing that a balancing and reorientation of attention might be engaged not only through higher-order and top-down mechanisms (i.e., FPN/DAN) but also via the coupling of bottom-up, sensory-motor (i.e., SMN/VIN) networks.

Pilots' Reactions to Different Types of Alerts When Using Head-Up Displays.

INTRODUCTION: The benefits of using head-up displays (HUDs) include reducing head-down time during critical flight phases, enhancing awareness of the external environment, and improving in-flight crew performance. However, the monochromatic nature of HUDs, increased head rotation, and longer gaze movement paths might affect pilots' reactions to different types of alerts.METHODS: Pilot workload and behavior differences were examined between HUD and head-down display (HDD) configurations in three alert scenarios. The study was carried out in an A320 flight simulator and 12 pilots participated.RESULTS: Except for one engine-on-fire scenario, pilot workload when using a HUD was significantly lower than using an HDD. In one engine-on-fire (3.98 s vs. 3.57 s) and one gear-disagree (5.42 s vs. 4.69 s) scenario, pilot response time to alerts using HUD was significantly longer than using an HDD. The angle deviations were significantly smaller when using HUDs in both go-around-under-crosswind (2.67° vs. 3.37°) and one engine-on-fire scenario (1.22° vs. 1.89°).DISCUSSION: The HUD is suitable for a lengthy process of manual flight control inputs, which not only reduces workload but also promotes control accuracy. For tasks that rely on automation, the benefits for workload become less obvious. In addition, head rotation and reorientation of attention adversely affected the response time to non-time-critical warnings and cautions. For instantaneous control with high precision requirements, HUDs did not demonstrate a significant advantage.Zheng Y, Lu Y, Jie Y, Fu S. Pilots' reactions to different types of alerts when using head-up displays. Aerosp Med Hum Perform. 2024; 95(9):688-694.

The disengagement deficit after right-hemisphere damage: Distinct roles of lateral frontal and parietal damage

An influential model of spatial attention postulates three main attention-orienting mechanisms: disengagement, shifting, and engagement. Early research linked disengagement deficits with superior parietal damage, regardless of hemisphere or presence of spatial neglect. Subsequent studies supported the involvement of more ventral parietal regions, especially in the right hemisphere, and linked spatial neglect to deficient disengagement from ipsilateral cues. However, previous lesion studies faced serious limitations, such as small sample sizes and the lack of brain-injured controls without neglect. Additionally, some studies employed symbolic cues or used long cue-target intervals, which may fail to reveal impaired disengagement. We here used a machine-learning approach to conduct lesion-symptom mapping (LSM) on 89 patients with focal cerebral lesions to the left (LH) or right (RH) cerebral hemisphere. A group of 54 healthy participants served as controls. The paradigm used to uncover disengagement deficits employed non-predictive cues presented in the visual periphery and at short cue-target intervals, targeting exogenous attention. The main factors of interest were group (healthy participants, LH, RH), target position (left, right hemifield) and cue validity (valid, invalid). LSM-analyses were performed on two indices: the validity effect, computed as the absolute difference between reaction times (RTs) following invalid compared to valid cues, and the disengagement deficit, determined by the difference between contralesional and ipsilesional validity effects. While LH patients showed general slowing of RTs to contralesional targets, only RH patients exhibited a disengagement deficit from ipsilesional cues. LSM associated the validity effect with a right lateral frontal cluster, which additionally affected subcortical white matter of the right arcuate fasciculus, the corticothalamic pathway, and the superior longitudinal fasciculus. In contrast, the disengagement deficit was related to damage involving the right temporoparietal junction. Thus, our results support the crucial role of right inferior parietal and posterior temporal regions for attentional disengagement, but also emphasize the importance of lateral frontal regions, for the reorienting of attention.

Infants' reorienting efficiency depends on parental autistic traits and predicts future socio-communicative behaviors.

Attentional reorienting is dysfunctional not only in children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD), but also in infants who will develop ASD, thus constituting a potential causal factor of future social interaction and communication abilities. Following the research domain criteria framework, we hypothesized that the presence of subclinical autistic traits in parents should lead to atypical infants' attentional reorienting, which in turn should impact on their future socio-communication behavior in toddlerhood. During an attentional cueing task, we measured the saccadic latencies in a large sample (total enrolled n = 89; final sample n = 71) of 8-month-old infants from the general population as a proxy for their stimulus-driven attention. Infants were grouped in a high parental traits (HPT; n = 23) or in a low parental traits (LPT; n = 48) group, according to the degree of autistic traits self-reported by their parents. Infants (n = 33) were then longitudinally followed to test their socio-communicative behaviors at 21months. Results show a sluggish reorienting system, which was a longitudinal predictor of future socio-communicative skills at 21months. Our combined transgenerational and longitudinal findings suggest that the early functionality of the stimulus-driven attentional network-redirecting attention from one event to another-could be directly connected to future social and communication development.

Neurotoxic effects of home radon exposure on oscillatory dynamics serving attentional orienting in children and adolescents

Radon is a naturally occurring gas that contributes significantly to radiation in the environment and is the second leading cause of lung cancer globally. Previous studies have shown that other environmental toxins have deleterious effects on brain development, though radon has not been studied as thoroughly in this context. This study examined the impact of home radon exposure on the neural oscillatory activity serving attention reorientation in youths. Fifty-six participants (ages 6–14 years) completed a classic Posner cuing task during magnetoencephalography (MEG), and home radon levels were measured for each participant. Time-frequency spectrograms indicated stronger theta (3–7 Hz, 300–800 ms), alpha (9–13 Hz, 400–900 ms), and beta responses (14–24 Hz, 400–900 ms) during the task relative to baseline. Source reconstruction of each significant oscillatory response was performed, and validity maps were computed by subtracting the task conditions (invalidly cued – validly cued). These validity maps were examined for associations with radon exposure, age, and their interaction in a linear regression design. Children with greater radon exposure showed aberrant oscillatory activity across distributed regions critical for attentional processing and attention reorientation (e.g., dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, and anterior cingulate cortex). Generally, youths with greater radon exposure exhibited a reverse neural validity effect in almost all regions and showed greater overall power relative to peers with lesser radon exposure. We also detected an interactive effect between radon exposure and age where youths with greater radon exposure exhibited divergent developmental trajectories in neural substrates implicated in attentional processing (e.g., bilateral prefrontal cortices, superior temporal gyri, and inferior parietal lobules). These data suggest aberrant, but potentially compensatory neural processing as a function of increasing home radon exposure in areas critical for attention and higher order cognition.

Dynamic functional connectivity in the right temporoparietal junction captures variations in male autistic trait expression.

Autistic individuals can experience difficulties with attention reorienting and Theory of Mind (ToM), which are closely associated with anterior and posterior subdivisions of the right temporoparietal junction. While the link between these processes remains unclear, it is likely subserved by a dynamic crosstalk between these two subdivisions. We, therefore, examined the dynamic functional connectivity (dFC) between the anterior and posterior temporoparietal junction, as a biological marker of attention and ToM, to test its contribution to the manifestation of autistic trait expression in Autism Spectrum Condition (ASC). Two studies were conducted, exploratory (14 ASC, 15 TD) and replication (29 ASC, 29 TD), using resting-state fMRI data and the Social Responsiveness Scale (SRS) from the Autism Brain Imaging Data Exchange repository. Dynamic Independent Component Analysis was performed in both datasets using the CONN toolbox. An additional sliding-window analysis was performed in the replication study to explore different connectivity states (from highly negatively to highly positively correlated). Dynamic FC was reduced in ASC compared to TD adults in both the exploratory and replication datasets and was associated with increased SRS scores (especially in ASC). Regression analyses revealed that decreased SRS autistic expression was predicted by engagement of highly negatively correlated states, while engagement of highly positively correlated states predicted increased expression. These findings provided consistent evidence that the difficulties observed in ASC are associated with altered patterns of dFC between brain regions subserving attention reorienting and ToM processes and may serve as a biomarker of autistic trait expression.

Cross-Modal Interactions Between Auditory Attention and Oculomotor Control.

Microsaccades are small, involuntary eye movements that occur during fixation. Their role is debated with recent hypotheses proposing a contribution to automatic scene sampling. Microsaccadic inhibition (MSI) refers to the abrupt suppression of microsaccades, typically evoked within 0.1 s after new stimulus onset. The functional significance and neural underpinnings of MSI are subjects of ongoing research. It has been suggested that MSI is a component of the brain's attentional re-orienting network which facilitates the allocation of attention to new environmental occurrences by reducing disruptions or shifts in gaze that could interfere with processing. The extent to which MSI is reflexive or influenced by top-down mechanisms remains debated. We developed a task that examines the impact of auditory top-down attention on MSI, allowing us to disentangle ocular dynamics from visual sensory processing. Participants (N = 24 and 27; both sexes) listened to two simultaneous streams of tones and were instructed to attend to one stream while detecting specific task "targets." We quantified MSI in response to occasional task-irrelevant events presented in both the attended and unattended streams (frequency steps in Experiment 1, omissions in Experiment 2). The results show that initial stages of MSI are not affected by auditory attention. However, later stages (∼0.25 s postevent onset), affecting the extent and duration of the inhibition, are enhanced for sounds in the attended stream compared to the unattended stream. These findings provide converging evidence for the reflexive nature of early MSI stages and robustly demonstrate the involvement of auditory attention in modulating the later stages.

Modeling the effects of transcranial magnetic stimulation on spatial attention

Objectives. Transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) has been widely used to modulate brain activity in healthy and diseased brains, but the underlying mechanisms are not fully understood. Previous research leveraged biophysical modeling of the induced electric field (E-field) to map causal structure–function relationships in the primary motor cortex. This study aims at transferring this localization approach to spatial attention, which helps to understand the TMS effects on cognitive functions, and may ultimately optimize stimulation schemes. Approach. Thirty right-handed healthy participants underwent a functional magnetic imaging (fMRI) experiment, and seventeen of them participated in a TMS experiment. The individual fMRI activation peak within the right inferior parietal lobule (rIPL) during a Posner-like attention task defined the center target for TMS. Thereafter, participants underwent 500 Posner task trials. During each trial, a 5-pulse burst of 10 Hz repetitive TMS (rTMS) was given over the rIPL to modulate attentional processing. The TMS-induced E-fields for every cortical target were correlated with the behavioral modulation to identify relevant cortical regions for attentional orientation and reorientation. Main results. We did not observe a robust correlation between E-field strength and behavioral outcomes, highlighting the challenges of transferring the localization method to cognitive functions with high neural response variability and complex network interactions. Nevertheless, TMS selectively inhibited attentional reorienting in five out of seventeen subjects, resulting in task-specific behavioral impairments. The BOLD-measured neuronal activity and TMS-evoked neuronal effects showed different patterns, which emphasizes the principal distinction between the neural activity being correlated with (or maybe even caused by) particular paradigms, and the activity of neural populations exerting a causal influence on the behavioral outcome. Significance. This study is the first to explore the mechanisms of TMS-induced attentional modulation through electrical field modeling. Our findings highlight the complexity of cognitive functions and provide a basis for optimizing attentional stimulation protocols.

Successful modulation of temporoparietal junction activity and stimulus-driven attention by fNIRS-based neurofeedback—A randomized controlled proof-of-concept study

Abstract The right temporoparietal junction (rTPJ) is a core hub in neural networks associated with reorienting of attention and social cognition. However, it remains unknown whether participants can learn to actively modulate their rTPJ activity via neurofeedback. Here, we explored the feasibility of functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS)-based neurofeedback in modulating rTPJ activity and its effect on rTPJ functions such as reorienting of attention and visual perspective taking. In a bidirectional regulation control group design, 50 healthy participants were reinforced to either up- or downregulate rTPJ activation over 4 days of training. Both groups showed an increase in rTPJ activity right from the beginning of the training but only the upregulation group maintained this effect, while the downregulation group showed a decline from the initial rTPJ activation. This suggests a learning effect in the downregulation exclusively, making it challenging to draw definitive conclusions about the effectiveness of rTPJ upregulation training. However, we observed group-specific effects on the behavioral level. We found a significant group x time interaction effect in the performance of the reorienting of attention task and group-specific changes, with decreased reaction times (RTs) in the upregulation group and increased RTs in the downregulation group across all conditions after the neurofeedback training. Those with low baseline performance showed greater improvements. In the perspective-taking task, however, only time effects were observed that were non-group-specific. These findings demonstrate that fNIRS-based neurofeedback is a feasible method to modulate rTPJ functions with preliminary evidence of neurophysiologically specific effects, thus paving the way for future applications of non-invasive rTPJ modulation in neuropsychiatric disorders.

Exploring the Role of Attentional Reorienting in the Reactive Effects of Judgments of Learning on Memory Performance.

Making judgments of learning (JOLs) while studying related word pairs can enhance performance on tests that rely on cue-target associations (e.g., cued recall) compared to studying alone. One possible explanation for this positive JOL reactivity effect is that the prompt to make JOLs, which typically occurs halfway through the presentation of each pair, may encourage learners to devote more attention to the pair during the second half of the encoding episode, which may contribute to enhanced recall performance. To investigate this idea, an online sample of participants (Experiment 1) and undergraduate students (Experiment 2) studied a set of moderately related word pairs (e.g., dairy-cow) in preparation for a cued recall test. Some participants made JOLs for each pair halfway through the presentation, whereas other participants did not. Also, some participants were presented with a fixation point halfway through the presentation, whereas other participants were not. The goal of this fixation point was to simulate the possible "reorienting" effect of a JOL prompt halfway through each encoding episode. In both an unsupervised online context and a supervised laboratory context, cued recall performance was higher for participants who made JOLs compared to those who did not make JOLs. However, presenting a fixation point halfway through the presentation of each pair did not lead to reactive effects on memory. Thus, JOLs are more effective than a manipulation that reoriented participants to the word pairs in another way (i.e., via a fixation point), which provides some initial evidence that positive reactivity for related pairs is not solely driven by attentional reorienting during encoding.

Developmental alterations in the neural oscillatory dynamics underlying attentional reorienting

The neural and cognitive processes underlying the flexible allocation of attention undergo a protracted developmental course with changes occurring throughout adolescence. Despite documented age-related improvements in attentional reorienting throughout childhood and adolescence, the neural correlates underlying such changes in reorienting remain unclear. Herein, we used magnetoencephalography (MEG) to examine neural dynamics during a Posner attention-reorienting task in 80 healthy youth (6–14 years old). The MEG data were examined in the time-frequency domain and significant oscillatory responses were imaged in anatomical space. During the reorienting of attention, youth recruited a distributed network of regions in the fronto-parietal network, along with higher-order visual regions within the theta (3–7 Hz) and alpha-beta (10–24 Hz) spectral windows. Beyond the expected developmental improvements in behavioral performance, we found stronger theta oscillatory activity as a function of age across a network of prefrontal brain regions irrespective of condition, as well as more limited age- and validity-related effects for alpha-beta responses. Distinct brain-behavior associations between theta oscillations and attention-related symptomology were also uncovered across a network of brain regions. Taken together, these data are the first to demonstrate developmental effects in the spectrally-specific neural oscillations serving the flexible allocation of attention.

The involvement of the temporo-parietal junction in attentional reorienting and stimulus evaluation

The involvement of the temporo-parietal junction in attentional reorienting and stimulus evaluation

Pupil-linked arousal modulates network-level EEG signatures of attention reorienting during immersive multitasking

Objective. When multitasking, we must dynamically reorient our attention between different tasks. Attention reorienting is thought to arise through interactions of physiological arousal and brain-wide network dynamics. In this study, we investigated the relationship between pupil-linked arousal and electroencephalography (EEG) brain dynamics in a multitask driving paradigm conducted in virtual reality. We hypothesized that there would be an interaction between arousal and EEG dynamics and that this interaction would correlate with multitasking performance. Approach. We collected EEG and eye tracking data while subjects drove a motorcycle through a simulated city environment, with the instructions to count the number of target images they observed while avoiding crashing into a lead vehicle. The paradigm required the subjects to continuously reorient their attention between the two tasks. Subjects performed the paradigm under two conditions, one more difficult than the other. Main results. We found that task difficulty did not strongly correlate with pupil-linked arousal, and overall task performance increased as arousal level increased. A single-trial analysis revealed several interesting relationships between pupil-linked arousal and task-relevant EEG dynamics. Employing exact low-resolution electromagnetic tomography, we found that higher pupil-linked arousal led to greater EEG oscillatory activity, especially in regions associated with the dorsal attention network and ventral attention network (VAN). Consistent with our hypothesis, we found a relationship between EEG functional connectivity and pupil-linked arousal as a function of multitasking performance. Specifically, we found decreased functional connectivity between regions in the salience network (SN) and the VAN as pupil-linked arousal increased, suggesting that improved multitasking performance at high arousal levels may be due to a down-regulation in coupling between the VAN and the SN. Our results suggest that when multitasking, our brain rebalances arousal-based reorienting so that individual task demands can be met without prematurely reorienting to competing tasks.

Distinct modulation of FEF during orienting and reorienting of exogenous and endogenous attention

Distinct modulation of FEF during orienting and reorienting of exogenous and endogenous attention

Monocular eye patching modulates reorienting of covert attention in patients with unilateral middle cerebral artery stroke

Unilateral brain lesions can lead to impaired contralesional attention and reduced ipsilesional and enhanced contralesional superior colliculus (SC) activity. We aimed to investigate whether modulation of SC activation via monocular eye patching can improve contralesional attention. Twenty left-hemispheric (LH) and 20 right-hemispheric (RH) patients with an acute or subacute middle cerebral artery (MCA) stroke completed an endogenous version of the Posner cueing task twice, while the left or right eye was covered with an eye patch. The LH and RH patients showed significantly slower reactions to contralesional than to ipsilesional stimuli. In addition, the eye patch modulated responses to invalidly but not those to validly cued stimuli. Post hoc analyses could not discriminate whether this effect pertained to a particular target side or eye patch position. However, exploratory analyses indicated that the observed eye patch effect might affect the RH group more than the LH group. As predicted 36 years ago, monocular eye patching modulates visuospatial attention, presumably due to differences in SC activation between the two eye patch conditions. However, this modulation seems too weak and unspecific, and therefore possibly not strong enough to be a treatment option for patients with visuospatial attention impairments.

Temporal dynamics of electroencephalographic microstates during sustained pain.

Brain dynamics can be modeled by a sequence of transient, nonoverlapping patterns of quasi-stable electrical potentials named "microstates." While electroencephalographic (EEG) microstates among patients with chronic pain remained inconsistent in the literature, this study characterizes the temporal dynamics of EEG microstates among healthy individuals during experimental sustained pain. We applied capsaicin (pain condition) or control (no-pain condition) cream to 58 healthy participants in different sessions and recorded resting-state EEG 15min after application. We identified 4 canonical microstates (A-D) that are related to auditory, visual, salience, and attentional networks. Microstate C had less occurrence, as were bidirectional transitions between microstate C and microstates A and B during sustained pain. In contrast, sustained pain was associated with more frequent and longer duration of microsite D, as well as more bidirectional transitions between microstate D and microstates A and B. Microstate D duration positively correlated with intensity of ongoing pain. Sustained pain improved global integration within microstate C functional network, but weakened global integration and efficiency within microstate D functional network. These results suggest that sustained pain leads to an imbalance between processes that load on saliency (microstate C) and processes related to switching and reorientation of attention (microstate D).

Interpretation of Verbal and Non-Verbal Means of Multimodal Communication (Based on Speeches in the European Parliament)

The purpose of the study is to determine the linguistic and cultural specifics of verbal and non-verbal means and mechanisms of multimodal communication functioning in the European Parliament speeches and to interpret them within the framework of political discourse. The material of the study was five videos with public speeches in English, posted on the websites of the European Parliament. These videos are complexly organized products of multimodal interaction between the addresser and the addressee, the specificity of multimodality here consists in the simultaneous use of different nature manifestations in the same audio-visual space from the standpoint of semiotics with the help of various sensory modalities. The article deals with verbal and non-verbal (visual and prosodic) means of manipulation in political discourse. Most often in these European public speeches, there are such verbal means of manipulation as repetitions, sabotage against logic (they are also false analogies), emotional cathexis, the enemy image; less commonly expressive strike, everyday story and reorientation of attention are used. Repetitions are most often directly or indirectly conveying an emotional assessment of language units. The reorientation of attention is used by attracting the attention of recipients by some bright or unusual facts. The active use of non-verbal means of psychological manipulation (intonation, gestures, facial expressions) indicates a manifestation of aggression rather than creating an impression of friendliness and cooperation. The general strategy of presenting information in these videos is characterized by attracting the recipient attention with capacious “bait” phrases that cause a direct emotional response.

English Language Teachers in Iraq Face Challenges and Have Opportunities Beyond Just Giving Knowledge

Recently, there have been some significant shifts in teacher education, which has resulted in a reorientation of attention away from transmitting designs and toward alternative models and techniques. These alternative methods and speculations surfaced in the post-transmission period and addressed socially constructed, diplomatic, philosophical, and essential careers. Even though teacher training programs have changed across the board, alternate theories and viewpoints seem to have little to no impact on Iraq's English language teaching (ELT) education agendas. This research examined the issues and difficulties experienced by instructors and educators working in Iraqi academic settings and the relevance of post-transmission viewpoints and theories to that situation. The data were gathered from the opinions and convictions of 8 knowledgeable English instructors, and three teachers were interviewed. The following data collection methods were used: collaborative discussion, reflective narration, and interviews. The data were captured so that new topics relevant to the current educational development in Iraq might be discovered. These topics included barriers, restrictions, and worries in the event of any reform. According to the study's findings, participants believed that educators, instructors, and decision-makers must accept many ideas and techniques to improve what was before and also in English as a foreign language in the Iraqi curriculum for teachers.

What naturalistic stimuli tell us about pronoun resolution in real-time processing.

Studies on pronoun resolution have mostly utilized short texts consisting of a context and a target sentence. In the current study we presented participants with nine chapters of an audio book while recording their EEG to investigate the real-time resolution of personal and demonstrative pronouns in a more naturalistic setting. The annotation of the features of the pronouns and their antecedents registered a surprising pattern: demonstrative pronouns showed an interpretive preference for subject/agent antecedents, although they are described to have an anti-subject or anti-agent preference. Given the presence of perspectival centers in the audio book, this however confirmed proposals that demonstrative pronouns are sensitive to perspectival centers. The ERP results revealed a biphasic N400-Late Positivity pattern at posterior electrodes for the demonstrative pronoun relative to the personal pronoun, thereby confirming previous findings with highly controlled stimuli. We take the observed N400 for the demonstrative pronoun as an indication for more demanding processing costs that occur due to the relative unexpectedness of this referential expression. The Late Positivity is taken to reflect the consequences of attentional reorientation: since the demonstrative pronoun indicates a possible shift in the discourse structure, it induces updating of the discourse structure. In addition to the biphasic pattern, the data showed an enhanced positivity at frontal electrode sites for the demonstrative pronoun relative to the personal pronoun. We suggest that this frontal positivity reflects self-relevant engagement and identification with the perspective holder. Our study suggests that by using naturalistic stimuli, we get one step closer to understanding the implementation of language processing in the brain during real life language processing.

ERP indicators of situational empathy pain

This study aimed to validate a recent conceptualization proposed by Coll and colleagues (2017a) that defines empathic response as a situational, cognitively complex process requiring emotion identification and affective sharing. Sixty right-handed women university students (18–29 years) voluntarily participated in the study. We measured ratings for empathy pain to assess the individual differences in empathy. At the same time, we collected peak amplitudes of the event-related potentials (ERPs) components to empathic stimulations of painful faces or hand stimuli and neutral images. Electrophysiological results proved that the P2, N170, N2, and P3 ERP components were associated with the modulation of empathic responses. Participants with low empathic responses (p < 0.05) disclosed a larger frontal central N2 for the painful hands than for painful faces (p < .05) and a reduced temporoparietal N170 for painful hands compared to neutral ones. Furthermore, our results highlighted higher frontal central P3a and P3b to painful stimuli than controls (p ≤ 0.01). We explained these findings assuming that in identifying the emotional value of a stimulus, the emotional content can modulate the reorientation of attention and the in-memory updating process associated with the empathic response. Results are in line with Coll and colleagues' conceptualization of the empathic response that includes two cognitive processes, the identification of emotions, and affective sharing, related to the recognition of the emotional state of the other in the self.