Cargando…

Exploring Empathic Space: Correlates of Perspective Transformation Ability and Biases in Spatial Attention

Separate lines of research have noted recruitment of parietal cortex during tasks involving visuo-spatial processes and empathy. To explore the relationship between these two functions, a self-other perspective transformation task and a task of spatial attention (line bisection) were administered to...

Descripción completa

Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Thakkar, Katharine N., Brugger, Peter, Park, Sohee
Formato: Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Public Library of Science 2009
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2688758/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19516894
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0005864
_version_ 1782167733701443584
author Thakkar, Katharine N.
Brugger, Peter
Park, Sohee
author_facet Thakkar, Katharine N.
Brugger, Peter
Park, Sohee
author_sort Thakkar, Katharine N.
collection PubMed
description Separate lines of research have noted recruitment of parietal cortex during tasks involving visuo-spatial processes and empathy. To explore the relationship between these two functions, a self-other perspective transformation task and a task of spatial attention (line bisection) were administered to 40 healthy participants (19 women). Performance on these tasks was examined in relation to self-reported empathy. Rightward biases in line bisection correlated positively with trait-level self-reported empathic concern, suggesting a left hemisphere mediation of this prosocial personality trait. Unexpectedly, speed of perspective taking in the self-other transformation task correlated negatively with empathic concern, but only in women, which we interpret in light of gender differences in empathy and strategies for egocentric mental transformations. Together, the findings partially support the commonalities in visuo-spatial attention, perspective-taking and empathy. More broadly, they shed additional light on the relationship between basic cognitive functions and complex social constructs.
format Text
id pubmed-2688758
institution National Center for Biotechnology Information
language English
publishDate 2009
publisher Public Library of Science
record_format MEDLINE/PubMed
spelling pubmed-26887582009-06-09 Exploring Empathic Space: Correlates of Perspective Transformation Ability and Biases in Spatial Attention Thakkar, Katharine N. Brugger, Peter Park, Sohee PLoS One Research Article Separate lines of research have noted recruitment of parietal cortex during tasks involving visuo-spatial processes and empathy. To explore the relationship between these two functions, a self-other perspective transformation task and a task of spatial attention (line bisection) were administered to 40 healthy participants (19 women). Performance on these tasks was examined in relation to self-reported empathy. Rightward biases in line bisection correlated positively with trait-level self-reported empathic concern, suggesting a left hemisphere mediation of this prosocial personality trait. Unexpectedly, speed of perspective taking in the self-other transformation task correlated negatively with empathic concern, but only in women, which we interpret in light of gender differences in empathy and strategies for egocentric mental transformations. Together, the findings partially support the commonalities in visuo-spatial attention, perspective-taking and empathy. More broadly, they shed additional light on the relationship between basic cognitive functions and complex social constructs. Public Library of Science 2009-06-10 /pmc/articles/PMC2688758/ /pubmed/19516894 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0005864 Text en Thakkar et al. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are properly credited.
spellingShingle Research Article
Thakkar, Katharine N.
Brugger, Peter
Park, Sohee
Exploring Empathic Space: Correlates of Perspective Transformation Ability and Biases in Spatial Attention
title Exploring Empathic Space: Correlates of Perspective Transformation Ability and Biases in Spatial Attention
title_full Exploring Empathic Space: Correlates of Perspective Transformation Ability and Biases in Spatial Attention
title_fullStr Exploring Empathic Space: Correlates of Perspective Transformation Ability and Biases in Spatial Attention
title_full_unstemmed Exploring Empathic Space: Correlates of Perspective Transformation Ability and Biases in Spatial Attention
title_short Exploring Empathic Space: Correlates of Perspective Transformation Ability and Biases in Spatial Attention
title_sort exploring empathic space: correlates of perspective transformation ability and biases in spatial attention
topic Research Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2688758/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19516894
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0005864
work_keys_str_mv AT thakkarkatharinen exploringempathicspacecorrelatesofperspectivetransformationabilityandbiasesinspatialattention
AT bruggerpeter exploringempathicspacecorrelatesofperspectivetransformationabilityandbiasesinspatialattention
AT parksohee exploringempathicspacecorrelatesofperspectivetransformationabilityandbiasesinspatialattention