Cognitive Components Of Empathy Research Articles

Introducing the ELPIS scale: a novel tool for measuring emotional empathy toward cancer patients.

Empathy, defined as the ability to understand and share another person's feelings, is crucial in the healthcare setting, particularly for patients with cancer who face significant psychosocial challenges. We aimed to develop a novel tool, the Empathy, Life with Cancer, and Psychosocial Skills (ELPIS) Scale that prioritizes emotional and cognitive components in order to determine the reflection of the negative stigmatization of cancer in societies on individuals, excluding the behavioral and ethical dimensions of empathy. The study was conducted using a quantitative research design with a sample of first- and second-year medical students in Türkiye. An initial pool of 48 items was developed based on an extensive review of the literature and existing empathy scales. Following expert review and pilot testing, the scale was refined to 24 items. Exploratory factor analysis and confirmatory factor analysis were conducted to establish the scale's factor structure and validate its reliability and validity. The exploratory factor analysis revealed a three-factor structure comprising "emotional empathy," "sympathetic responses," and "realistic approaches," with a total of 20 items after refinement. Confirmatory factor analysis confirmed the model fit, with the scale demonstrating high internal consistency across all three dimensions. The scale's reliability was further supported by high Cronbach's alpha values. The results suggest that the ELPIS Scale is a reliable and valid instrument for measuring emotional empathy toward cancer patients. It offers a nuanced approach by separately assessing emotional, sympathetic, and realistic components of empathy, making it a valuable tool for both educational and clinical applications. Future research should explore the scale's application in diverse populations and settings, as well as its utility in tracking empathy development over time. In conclusion, the ELPIS Scale, which focuses on the emotional and cognitive components of empathy, a multifaceted construct, fills a critical gap in the measurement of empathy in the context of cancer care and provides a comprehensive tool that can improve both patient care and the education of healthcare providers.

Levels of Empathy in Students and Professors with Patients in a Faculty of Dentistry.

Empathy is an attribute that plays an essential role in the dentist-patient therapeutic relationship, clinical care, and treatment adherence, along with providing other benefits. The main objective of this research was to establish the validity, reliability, and invariance of the Jefferson Scale of Empathy and then characterize the empathy levels of students and teachers at a dental school. An observational and cross-sectional study analyzed a sample of undergraduate students and professors from the Universidad Andrés Bello Faculty of Dentistry (Chile) (n = 1727 and n = 267, respectively). The Empathy Scale for Health Professionals (HP) and the same scale for students (HPS) were applied. The Jefferson Empathy Scale presents adequate psychometric properties. The empathy measure has adequate reliability and construct validity, confirming a fit of the three-factor empathy model to the data. The measurement is invariant within the university campus, the sex of the student, and between teacher and student. Teachers present greater empathy than students except in the Perspective Adoption dimension. The Jefferson Empathy Scale is reliable, valid, and invariant among Chilean dental students and professors. Students do not differ from their professors in the cognitive component of empathy, but they present a lower score in the affective component and global empathy. It is inferred that students can develop the affective component of empathy in their interactions with their professors, increasing their overall empathy. Understanding and fostering empathy in dental students and professors can significantly improve patient care and treatment adherence and increase patient and dentist satisfaction.

Technology in the service of caregiver well‐being: an online psycho‐educational intervention combined with virtual reality

AbstractBackgroundCare for community‐dwelling people with dementia (PwD) is frequently delegated to relatives, who find themselves in the role of informal caregivers (iCGs) with no practical knowledge to manage their loved ones. This situation puts iCGs at high risk for emotional distress. We will assess the efficacy of an online psycho‐educational program combined with an immersive virtual reality (VR) experience to reduce iCGs perceived stress by acting on the cognitive and affective components of empathy.MethodUsing covariate‐adaptive (by sex and baseline level of perceived stress) randomization, 100 iCGs of mild‐to‐moderate Alzheimer’s disease patients will be assigned to i) an online 6‐week psycho‐educational program (control arm); or ii) the same psycho‐educational program integrated with VR (experimental arm). VR consists of 360‐degree videos and allows caregivers to experience dementia symptoms from the patient’s perspective. The primary outcome will be a change in emotional distress, assessed with the Zarit Burden Inventory and the State‐Trait Anxiety Inventory. In addition, changes in brain activity while reading emotional stories (protocol modified from Ashar, 2017) will be assessed as a secondary outcome in a subsample of 50 participants who will undergo magnetic resonance imaging. Primary and secondary outcomes will be measured before and after the intervention. A 2‐month clinical follow‐up is also scheduled.ResultTo date, 20 iCGs (mean age: 58; range 30‐79; female: 75%; children: 55%) have been randomized to the 2 arms. The psycho‐educational program provides support for the home management of PwD, by offering knowledge on symptom management and enhancing strategies based on the cognitive component of empathy. During each session, iCGs are exposed to 30 minutes of empathy training with i) imagery exercises or ii) VR. The experimental intervention is expected to result in deeper disease comprehension and strengthen empathy’s cognitive component. At the network level, we expect to observe a greater activation of cognitive empathy circuits and a lower activation of affective empathy circuits in the experimental group.ConclusionTo our knowledge, this will be the first randomized controlled trial assessing the synergistic effect of combining traditional psycho‐educational intervention with VR in iCGs and measuring both clinical and imaging markers.

Technology in the service of caregiver well‐being: an online psycho‐educational intervention combined with virtual reality

AbstractBackgroundCare for community‐dwelling people with dementia (PwD) is frequently delegated to relatives, who find themselves in the role of informal caregivers (iCGs) with no practical knowledge to manage their loved ones. This situation puts iCGs at high risk for emotional distress. We will assess the efficacy of an online psycho‐educational program combined with an immersive virtual reality (VR) experience to reduce iCGs perceived stress by acting on the cognitive and affective components of empathy.MethodUsing covariate‐adaptive (by sex and baseline level of perceived stress) randomization, 100 iCGs of mild‐to‐moderate Alzheimer’s disease patients will be assigned to i) an online 6‐week psycho‐educational program (control arm); or ii) the same psycho‐educational program integrated with VR (experimental arm). VR consists of 360‐degree videos and allows caregivers to experience dementia symptoms from the patient’s perspective. The primary outcome will be a change in emotional distress, assessed with the Zarit Burden Inventory and the State‐Trait Anxiety Inventory. In addition, changes in brain activity while reading emotional stories (protocol modified from Ashar, 2017) will be assessed as a secondary outcome in a subsample of 50 participants who will undergo magnetic resonance imaging. Primary and secondary outcomes will be measured before and after the intervention. A 2‐month clinical follow‐up is also scheduled.ResultTo date, 20 iCGs (mean age: 58; range 30‐79; female: 75%; children: 55%) have been randomized to the 2 arms. The psycho‐educational program provides support for the home management of PwD, by offering knowledge on symptom management and enhancing strategies based on the cognitive component of empathy. During each session, iCGs are exposed to 30 minutes of empathy training with i) imagery exercises or ii) VR. The experimental intervention is expected to result in deeper disease comprehension and strengthen empathy’s cognitive component. At the network level, we expect to observe a greater activation of cognitive empathy circuits and a lower activation of affective empathy circuits in the experimental group.ConclusionTo our knowledge, this will be the first randomized controlled trial assessing the synergistic effect of combining traditional psycho‐educational intervention with VR in iCGs and measuring both clinical and imaging markers.

Self-assessment of empathy uncovers defective self-awareness in mild cognitive impairment.

Self-assessment scales are broadly used to evaluate empathy in neurological patients, but it is conceivable that some discrepancy with caregiver evaluation may emerge as consequence of reduced self-awareness. The aim of the present study was to verify the presence of discrepancies in the self-assessment of empathy in subjects with mild cognitive impairment (MCI) and to explore their neural correlates. Twenty MCI patients and 38 healthy controls (HCs) underwent the Interpersonal Reactivity Index (IRI), exploring the following four aspects of empathy: perspective taking (PT), fantasy, empathic concern, and personal distress. The questionnaire was administered in two modalities: self-administered, and administered to an informant, and the scores were compared. The correlation between discrepancies and regional cortical thickness was assessed. The self-administered version of IRI showed higher PT scores in MCI as compared to HC (p = .017), with no differences detected in the other subscales. The difference between the scores obtained in the self-administered and in the informant-administered IRI-PT was significantly higher in MCI than in HCs (p = .006). The self-assessment of empathy in subjects with MCI may be misleading because of a tendency toward an overestimation of the PT ability, typically considered as a cognitive component of empathy. Our results may reflect a particular aspect of reduced self-awareness in MCI subjects. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).

Using Visual Arts Education and Reflective Practice to Increase Empathy and Perspective Taking in Medical Students.

Empathy is a critical competency for health care providers. However, empathy levels in medical students and residents have been shown to paradoxically decrease during training. Arts and humanities education and reflective practice may reduce burnout and promote empathy during medical school. We developed and implemented an art education elective for medical students focusing on observation and reflective practice and measured its impact on empathy. Between 2017 and 2022, first-year medical students were offered an annual, 4-week elective led by art educators that featured visualization exercises and discussions on the role of bias and perspective in art interpretation. Curriculum effectiveness and impact on empathy were measured using the validated Interpersonal Reactivity Index (IRI) and self-assessments. One hundred twenty-eight students participated in the elective over a 5-year period; 89 (70%) completed assessments. Students reported improvements in empathic communication, recognition of bias, and observation skills. IRI data demonstrated a significant increase in perspective taking (19.0 vs. 20.2; p < .0125). Participation in the elective was associated with self-reported improvements in visual observation, awareness of bias, and empathetic communication. IRI results showed that participants also demonstrated improved perspective taking. Since perspective taking is a cognitive component of empathy, we have provided some empirical evidence that arts education in medical school can promote empathic attitudes and skills.

Altered empathy correlates with reduced social and non-social reward anticipation in individuals with high social anhedonia.

This study examined the correlations of affective and cognitive components of empathy with reward anticipation toward monetary and social incentives in individuals with social anhedonia (SocAnh). According to the scores on the Revised Social Anhedonia Scale, 109 participants were divided into high (n= 57) and low (n= 52) SocAnh groups. Empathy was assessed with the Questionnaire of Cognitive and Affective Empathy (QCAE) and the Interpersonal Reactivity Index (IRI) Scale. Social and non-social reward anticipations were assessed by the Social and Monetary Incentive Delay Tasks, respectively. We performed independent-sample t tests and repeated-measures ANOVAs to examine the group differences on empathy and reward anticipation. Correlation analyses between empathy and reward anticipation were conducted. Results showed that the high SocAnh group reported reduced scores on empathy and reward anticipation for monetary and social incentives compared to their low SocAnh counterparts. Correlation analysis further indicated that monetary reward anticipation correlated with cognitive empathy, while social reward anticipation correlated with affective empathy. Our findings suggested that participants with high SocAnh exhibited poorer empathy and reduced reward anticipation than those with low SocAnh level. More importantly, social and non-social reward anticipation may distinctly contribute to affective and cognitive components of empathy.

Traumatic bonding in victims of intimate partner violence is intensified via empathy

Intimate partner violence (IPV) is an increasingly prevalent problem in most parts of the world including sub-Saharan Africa. However, little is known about the bonding patterns of IPV victims who decide to remain with the perpetrator despite the molestation. This study investigated the mediating role of empathy in the relationship between partner molestation and traumatic bonding among victims of IPV in Nigeria. Participants were 345 women purposively selected from female clients who visited the Sexual Assault Referral Centre (SART) Awka, Anambra State ( n = 145) and the Lagos State Domestic and Sexual Violence Response Team, Lagos ( n = 200). Their age ranged from 18-61 years (M=35.79; SD=8.6 years). They responded to the Composite Abuse Scale, the Basic Empathy Scale, and the Stockholm Syndrome Scale. Results of data analysis using the Hayes regression-based PROCESS macro showed that partner molestation was not significantly associated with traumatic bonding. Affective and cognitive components of empathy were positively associated with increased traumatic bonding. Estimates of indirect effects indicated that affective empathy and cognitive empathy served as pathways through which IPV was linked to dimensions of traumatic bonding. Empathy may engender tendencies that increase the likelihood for traumatic bonding. Findings highlight the dynamics of empathy in building and sustaining traumatic bonding in victims of IPV.

Functional connectivity patterns of trait empathy are associated with age

Empathy is the capacity to feel and understand others’ mental states. In some individuals, there is an imbalance between the affective and cognitive components of empathy, which can lead to deficits. This study investigated the functional connectivity of the anterior insula (AI) and dorsomedial prefrontal cortex (dmPFC), which play key roles in empathy, in covariation with the affective and cognitive subscales of the Interpersonal Reactivity Index (IRI), as a function of age and sex, as an exploratory analysis. Seed-based functional connectivity analyses were performed on 33 healthy participants that were subdivided according to their age (16 adults and 17 adolescents) and sex (16 women and 17 men). Adolescents reported lower cognitive empathy than adults and men less affective empathy than women. The connectivity of the dmPFC and AI, in covariation with the cognitive and affective subscales of empathy, respectively, differed between adolescents and adults, but was similar in men and women. Adolescents had patterns of negative covariations between the regions of interest and many brain regions associated with the default-mode and salience networks. These findings support that lower self-report levels of empathy in certain individuals could be reflected in the functional connectivity patterns of the dmPFC and AI.

Your pain is not mine: A critique of clinical empathy.

Both in mainstream culture and in bioethical literature, there is a general agreement on the absolute positive value assigned to empathy in healthcare settings. Thanks to its two components—affective and cognitive—clinical empathy should allow physicians to be emotionally affected by the experiences of their patients, and at the same time, to imagine their situations in order to gain a deeper understanding and implement a ‘tailored’ approach to care. So, it seems that good physician has become synonymous with empathetic physician. However, while acknowledging its numerous benefits, I will argue that clinical empathy seems to harbour some dark sides. First, the affective component of clinical empathy (i.e. emotional resonance) is responsible for its partial nature and can lead to cognitive and moral distortions. Moreover, it can lead healthcare providers to negative psychological states, such as burnout and personal distress. Second, the cognitive component of empathy can be problematic as well: perspective‐taking is a far more difficult task than it is ordinarily thought to be. I will also try to demonstrate that accessing the inner world of others is neither possible nor desirable since this operation can result in undermining the patient's agency. Third, clinical empathy can become a tool that disguises the power imbalance between patients and doctors, and this can reinforce an elitist and paternalistic conception of the clinical encounter. Furthermore, the disregard for the influence that the sociocultural context has on the clinical relationship can amplify and promote instances of epistemic injustice perpetuating discriminatory and unfair dynamics.

Age-related differences in negative cognitive empathy but similarities in positive affective empathy

Empathy, among other social-cognitive processes, changes across adulthood. More specifically, cognitive components of empathy (understanding another’s perspective) appear to decline with age, while findings for affective empathy (sharing another’s emotional state) are rather mixed. Structural and functional correlates underlying cognitive and affective empathy in aging and the extent to which valence affects empathic response in brain and behavior are not well understood yet. To fill these research gaps, younger and older adults completed a modified version of the Multifaceted Empathy Test, which measures both cognitive and affective empathy as well as empathic responding to both positive and negative stimuli (i.e., positive vs. negative empathy). Adopting a multimodal imaging approach and applying multivariate analysis, the study found that for cognitive empathy to negative emotions, regions of the salience network including the anterior insula and anterior cingulate were more involved in older than younger adults. For affective empathy to positive emotions, in contrast, younger and older adults recruited a similar brain network including main nodes of the default mode network. Additionally, increased structural microstructure (fractional anisotropy values) of the posterior cingulum bundle (right henisphere) was related to activation of default mode regions during affective empathy for positive emotions in both age groups. These findings provide novel insights into the functional networks subserving cognitive and affective empathy in younger and older adults and highlight the importance of considering valence in empathic response in aging research. Further this study, for the first time, underscores the role of the posterior cingulum bundle in higher-order social-cognitive processes such as empathy, specifically for positive emotions, in aging.

Detached empathic experience of others’ pain in remitted states of depression – An fMRI study

BackgroundMajor depressive disorder is strongly associated with impairments and difficulties in social interactions. Deficits in empathy, a vital skill for social interactions, have been identified as a risk factor for relapse. However, research on empathy in remitted states of depression is scarce. We chose a social neuroscience approach to investigate potentially altered neural processes involved in sub-components of empathy in remitted states of depression. We expected aberrations in cognitive components of empathy, based on previous reports regarding their role as risk factors for relapse. MethodsEmploying functional magnetic resonance imaging and a pain empathy task (video clips of painful medical treatments), we compared behavioral and neural empathic responses of unmedicated remitted depressive patients (N = 32) to those of untreated acutely depressed patients (N = 29) and healthy controls (N = 35). Self-report ratings of pain evaluation and affect-sharing were obtained. ResultsCompared to controls and acutely depressed patients, remitted depressive patients reported higher pain evaluation and showed increased activity in the right temporo-parietal junction. This region, which is central to self-other distinction and which has been linked to adopting a detached perspective, also exhibited reduced connectivity to the anterior insula. Furthermore, we observed reduced activity in regions involved in emotion processing (amygdala) and perception of affective facial expressions (fusiform face area, posterior superior temporal sulcus). ConclusionsRemitted states of depression are associated with a detached empathic style in response to others’ pain, characterized by increased self-other distinction, lowered affective processing, and reduced connectivity between empathy-related brain regions. Although this may prevent emotional harm in specific situations, it may reduce opportunities for positive experiences in social interactions in the long run.

Neural dynamics of pain expression processing: Alpha-band synchronization to same-race pain but desynchronization to other-race pain

Both electroencephalography and functional magnetic resonance imaging studies have revealed enhanced neural responses to perceived pain in same-race than other-race individuals. However, it remains unclear how neural responses in the sensorimotor, cognitive, and affective subsystems vary dynamically in the first few hundreds of milliseconds to generate racial ingroup favoritism in empathy for pain. We recorded magnetoencephalography signals to pain and neutral expressions of Asian and white faces from Chinese adults during judgments of racial identity of each face. We found that pain compared to neutral expressions of same-race faces induced early increased alpha oscillations in the precuneus/parietal cortices followed by increased alpha-band oscillations in the left anterior insula and temporoparietal junction. Pain compared to neutral expressions of other-race faces, however, induced early suppression of alpha-band oscillations in the bilateral sensorimotor cortices and left insular cortex. Moreover, decreased functional connectivity between the left sensorimotor cortex and left anterior insula predicted reduced subjective feelings of other-race suffering. Our results unraveled distinct patterns of modulations of neural dynamics of sensorimotor, affective, and cognitive components of empathy by interracial relationships between an observer and a target person, which provide possible brain mechanisms for understanding racial ingroup favoritism in social behavior.

Is the Putative Mirror Neuron System Associated with Empathy? A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis.

Theoretical perspectives suggest that the mirror neuron system (MNS) is an important neurobiological contributor to empathy, yet empirical support is mixed. Here, we adopt a summary model for empathy, consisting of motor, emotional, and cognitive components of empathy. This review provides an overview of existing empirical studies investigating the relationship between putative MNS activity and empathy in healthy populations. 52 studies were identified that investigated the association between the MNS and at least one domain of empathy, representing data from 1044 participants. Our results suggest that emotional and cognitive empathy are moderately correlated with MNS activity, however, these domains were mixed and varied across techniques used to acquire MNS activity (TMS, EEG, and fMRI). Few studies investigated motor empathy, and of those, no significant relationships were revealed. Overall, results provide preliminary evidence for a relationship between MNS activity and empathy. However, our findings highlight methodological variability in study design as an important factor in understanding this relationship. We discuss limitations regarding these methodological variations and important implications for clinical and community translations, as well as suggestions for future research.

Empathy in Alzheimer's Disease: Review of Findings and Proposed Model.

Empathy is essential for social interaction and a crucial trait to understand the intentions and behaviors of others and to react accordingly. Alzheimer's disease (AD) affects both cognitive and emotional processes and can lead to social dysfunction. Empathy results from the interaction of four components: shared neural representation, self-awareness, mental flexibility, and emotion regulation. This review discusses the abilities and deficits of patients with AD from the perspective of subcomponents of empathy and integrates these facets into a model of human empathy. The aim was to investigate the components that are affected by AD and the ways in which patients are still able to empathize with others in their social environment. It concludes that AD patients show a pattern of relatively preserved affective aspects and impairments in cognitive components of empathy and points out specific areas with the need for further research.

Construcción de una Escala de Habilidades Protomentalistas para infantes

Protomentalist skills are the basis for developing the theory of mind, that is the cognitive component of empathy so important for the effective social bond of human beings (Riviere, 2000; Saiz, Carbonero and Roman, 2012; Westby and Robinson, 2014). The objectives of the present study were to build a scale for the evaluation of the development of Protomentalist skills (PROTO - HM) aimed at infants under the age of 3, and to estimate its content validity. The scale was evaluated by 12 expert judges in child development in the United States of America, Chile and Peru. They observed the clarity of the statements, as well as the relevance and representativeness of the items according to the proposed theoretical model. In order to obtain the validity of content, Aiken V was used with 95% confidence intervals. The results show that all the items, dimensions and sub-dimensions of the protomentalist skills of interaction with people and interaction with objects show values higher than .80, these being statistically significant with respect to the minimum criteria of Aiken (.60). At the same time it evidences a good item performance because the lower limits of the 95% confidence interval were greater than .50 in all cases.

Age, gender, and educational level predict emotional but not cognitive empathy in farsi-speaking iranians

The affective and cognitive components of empathy have been extensively researched in various disciplines. However, little is known about how these components are influenced by individual differences in maturation or development. Acknowledging such a gap in the literature, the current study examined how individual differences (i.e., age, gender, and education) facilitate the development of dispositional empathy. Therefore, to meet the goals of this study, the Farsi version of three empathy questionnaires (i.e., Interpersonal Reactivity Index, Questionnaire Measurement of Emotional Empathy, and Empathy Quotient) were distributed among Farsi-speakers living inside or outside mainland Iran. The analysis of data obtained from 510 participants showed that age, educational level, and gender accounted for the changes in affective empathy, without any significant impact on cognitive empathy. The current study is the first study investigating developmental changes in self-report empathy score in a population of Farsi-speaking Iranians.

Online celebrity aggression: A combination of low empathy and high moral disengagement? The relationship between empathy and moral disengagement and adolescents' online celebrity aggression

Adolescents regularly become involved in online aggression. While existing research mainly concentrated on online peer aggression, some studies pointed to adolescents' aggression toward other targets, such as celebrities. It is known that socio-cognitive characteristics such as empathy and moral disengagement are associated with adolescents' aggression toward peers, but so far it remains unexplored if these traits can also explain celebrity aggression. The current study investigated the relationship between affective and cognitive empathy, moral disengagement and online celebrity aggression. The sample consisted of 1255 adolescents with a mean age of 14.17 years (SD = 0.47). Participants completed the Moral Disengagement Scale adapted to a celebrity context, the Emotional Quotient and a scale measuring mild and severe online celebrity aggression. Structural equation analysis in Mplus indicated that, when controlling for gender and celebrity media consumption, affective empathy was associated with severe and not with mild online celebrity aggression. The cognitive component of empathy was unrelated with online aggression toward celebrities. Moral disengagement was related with mild and severe online celebrity aggression and also mediated the relationship between affective empathy and both mild and severe celebrity aggression. Following these results, strategies aiming at reducing celebrity aggression may benefit from a focus on socio-cognitive characteristics.

An investigation of the divergences and convergences of trait empathy across two cultures

ABSTRACTThe extent to which individuals with a variety of cultural backgrounds differ in empathic responsiveness is unknown. This article describes the differences in trait empathy in one independent and one interdependent society (i.e., the US and Iran, respectively). The analysis of data collected from self-reported questionnaires answered by 326 adults indicated a significant difference in the cognitive component of empathy concerning participants’ affiliation to either egocentric or socio-centric society: Iranian participants with interdependent cultural norms, reported higher cognitive empathy compared to American participants who share independent cultural norms. In line with previous studies, gender differences were observed in all subscales of questionnaires, except the Empathy Quotient (EQ). Female participants demonstrated more empathy than males in both samples. Implications for understanding the cross-cultural differences of various components of empathy are discussed.

Tracking emotions in the brain – Revisiting the Empathic Accuracy Task

Many empathy tasks lack ecological validity due to their use of simplistic stimuli and static analytical approaches. Empathic accuracy tasks overcome these limitations by using autobiographical emotional video clips. Usually, a single measure of empathic accuracy is computed by correlating the participants' continuous ratings of the narrator's emotional state with the narrator's own ratings.In this study, we validated a modified empathic accuracy task. A valence-independent rating of the narrator's emotional intensity was added to provide comparability between videos portraying different primary emotions and to explore changes in neural activity related to variations in emotional intensity over time. We also added a new neutral control condition to investigate general emotional processing. In the scanner, 34 healthy participants watched 6 video clips of people talking about an autobiographical event (2 sad, 2 happy and 2 neutral clips) while continuously rating the narrator's emotional intensity.Fluctuation in perceived emotional intensity correlated with activity in brain regions previously implicated in cognitive empathy (bilateral superior temporal sulcus, temporoparietal junction, and temporal pole) and affective empathy (right anterior insula and inferior frontal gyrus). When emotional video clips were compared to neutral video clips, we observed higher activity in similar brain regions. Empathic accuracy, on the other hand, was only positively related to activation in regions that have been implicated in cognitive empathy.Our modified empathic accuracy task provides a new method for studying the underlying components and dynamic processes involved in empathy. While the task elicited both cognitive and affective empathy, successful tracking of others' emotions relied predominantly on the cognitive components of empathy. The fMRI data analysis techniques developed here may prove valuable in characterising the neural basis of empathic difficulties observed across a range of psychiatric conditions.