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Feeling Touched: Empathy Is Associated With Performance in a Tactile Acuity Task

The concept of empathy describes our capacity to understand the emotions and intentions of others and to relate to our conspecifics. Numerous studies investigated empathy as a state as well as a stable personality trait. For example, recent studies in neuroscience suggest, among other brain areas su...

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Autores principales: Schaefer, Michael, Joch, Marcel, Rother, Nikolas
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Frontiers Media S.A. 2021
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7900490/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33633552
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fnhum.2021.593425
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author Schaefer, Michael
Joch, Marcel
Rother, Nikolas
author_facet Schaefer, Michael
Joch, Marcel
Rother, Nikolas
author_sort Schaefer, Michael
collection PubMed
description The concept of empathy describes our capacity to understand the emotions and intentions of others and to relate to our conspecifics. Numerous studies investigated empathy as a state as well as a stable personality trait. For example, recent studies in neuroscience suggest, among other brain areas such as the insula or the ACC, a role of the somatosensory cortices for empathy (e.g., when observing someone else being touched). Since the classic understanding of the primary somatosensory cortex is to represent touch on the body surface, we here aimed to test whether tactile performance is linked to the personality trait empathy. To test this, we examined the tactile acuity of 95 healthy participants (mean age 31 years) by using a two-point discrimination threshold task at the index fingers. Trait empathy was assessed by employing the interpersonal reactivity index (IRI), which measures self-reported empathy with four scales (empathic concern, perspective taking, fantasy, and personal distress). Results of regression analyses suggested the subscale empathic concern to be positively associated with performance in the tactile acuity task. We discuss this finding in the light of recent studies on empathy and consider possible implications of tactile training to enhance empathy.
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spelling pubmed-79004902021-02-24 Feeling Touched: Empathy Is Associated With Performance in a Tactile Acuity Task Schaefer, Michael Joch, Marcel Rother, Nikolas Front Hum Neurosci Human Neuroscience The concept of empathy describes our capacity to understand the emotions and intentions of others and to relate to our conspecifics. Numerous studies investigated empathy as a state as well as a stable personality trait. For example, recent studies in neuroscience suggest, among other brain areas such as the insula or the ACC, a role of the somatosensory cortices for empathy (e.g., when observing someone else being touched). Since the classic understanding of the primary somatosensory cortex is to represent touch on the body surface, we here aimed to test whether tactile performance is linked to the personality trait empathy. To test this, we examined the tactile acuity of 95 healthy participants (mean age 31 years) by using a two-point discrimination threshold task at the index fingers. Trait empathy was assessed by employing the interpersonal reactivity index (IRI), which measures self-reported empathy with four scales (empathic concern, perspective taking, fantasy, and personal distress). Results of regression analyses suggested the subscale empathic concern to be positively associated with performance in the tactile acuity task. We discuss this finding in the light of recent studies on empathy and consider possible implications of tactile training to enhance empathy. Frontiers Media S.A. 2021-02-09 /pmc/articles/PMC7900490/ /pubmed/33633552 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fnhum.2021.593425 Text en Copyright © 2021 Schaefer, Joch and Rother. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
spellingShingle Human Neuroscience
Schaefer, Michael
Joch, Marcel
Rother, Nikolas
Feeling Touched: Empathy Is Associated With Performance in a Tactile Acuity Task
title Feeling Touched: Empathy Is Associated With Performance in a Tactile Acuity Task
title_full Feeling Touched: Empathy Is Associated With Performance in a Tactile Acuity Task
title_fullStr Feeling Touched: Empathy Is Associated With Performance in a Tactile Acuity Task
title_full_unstemmed Feeling Touched: Empathy Is Associated With Performance in a Tactile Acuity Task
title_short Feeling Touched: Empathy Is Associated With Performance in a Tactile Acuity Task
title_sort feeling touched: empathy is associated with performance in a tactile acuity task
topic Human Neuroscience
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7900490/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33633552
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fnhum.2021.593425
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