Intergroup relationships do not reduce racial bias in empathic neural responses to pain

Contreras-Huerta, Luis Sebastian; Hielscher, Emily; Sherwell, Chase; Rens, Natalie; Cunnington, Ross

doi:10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2014.09.045

Cited by 41 publications

(35 citation statements)

References 70 publications

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“…Pain versus neutral expressions also induced positive shift of N2 amplitudes over the frontocentral region. These findings replicate the previous ERP findings of empathy for pain (Contreras-Huerta et al, 2014;Decety et al, 2010;Han et al, 2008;Huang & Han, 2014;Li & Han, 2010;Sheng & Han, 2012;Sheng et al, 2013). Our ERP results also showed that the increased P2 amplitude to pain versus neutral expressions was more salient when Figure 5.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 91%

“…Our previous research using the same stimuli and task showed similar N1 modulation by pain expression, though this effect did not reach significance, possibly due to a small sample size (Sheng & Han, 2012). Other ERP studies also reported reliable modulations of the N1 amplitude by perceived pain in others (Contreras-Huerta et al, 2014). It has been suggested that the increased N1 amplitude in response to fearful facial expression may reflect early coding of threatening messages (Bar-Haim, Lamy, & Glickman, 2005;Luo, Feng, He, Wang, & Luo, 2010).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 70%

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Embodied neural responses to others’ suffering

Han

Luo

Han

2015

Cognitive Neuroscience

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To investigate whether and how facial mimicry in observers affects their empathic neural responses to others' pain expressions, we recorded event-related potentials (ERPs) from Chinese adults while viewing pain and neutral expressions of Asian and Caucasian faces. Facial mimicry was manipulated by allowing participants to freely move their facial muscles (the relaxed condition) or asking them to hold a pen horizontally using both teeth and lips to prevent facial muscle movement and facial mimicry (the blocked condition). We found that the frontal N1 at 100-120 ms was enlarged by pain vs. neutral expressions. The N1 modulation by facial expressions was significantly reduced in the blocked compared to relaxed conditions and this effect was observed for Asian but not Caucasian faces. The findings suggest that facial mimicry plays a causal role in the early empathic neural response and the embodied empathic neural responses are constrained by the racial intergroup relationship.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 91%

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 70%

Embodied neural responses to others’ suffering

Han

Luo

Han

2015

Cognitive Neuroscience

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“…Moreover, the modulation of P2 amplitudes by pain vs. neutral expressions was more salient for racial in-group than racial out-group faces. When participants identified each observed individual's painful feelings or performed pain judgments on face stimuli, a long-latency component (i.e., P3) was observed over the central/parietal regions, of which, however, the amplitude to pain versus neural expressions did not show racial in-group bias (Contreras-Huerta et al, 2014;Sheng and Han, 2012).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 95%

Mortality salience enhances racial in-group bias in empathic neural responses to others' suffering

Liu

Luo

et al. 2015

NeuroImage

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“…First, some indirect evidence has shown that one may estimate another’s pain in an automatic fashion. For instance, contextual reality 25 and racial bias 27 , 29 , 31 modulate the early automatic ERP component of pain empathy. The idea of an automatic screening mechanism is reasonable since it has great evolutionary benefit for the observer (e.g., alleviating cognitive load).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

A Screening Mechanism Differentiating True from False Pain during Empathy

Sun

Lin

et al. 2017

Sci Rep

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Empathizing with another’s suffering is important in social interactions. Empathic behavior is selectively elicited from genuine, meaningful pain but not from fake, meaningless scenarios. However, the brain’s screening mechanism of false information from meaningful events and the time course for the screening process remains unclear. Using EEG combined with principle components analysis (PCA) techniques, here we compared temporal neurodynamics between the observation of pain and no-pain pictures as well as between true (painful expressions and needle-penetrated arms) and false (needle-penetrated faces with neutral expressions) pain pictures. The results revealed that pain vs. no-pain information is differentiated in the very early ERP components, i.e., the N1/P1 for the face and arm pictures categories and the VPP/N170 for the facial expression category while the mid-latency ERP components, N2 and P3, played key roles in differentiating true from false situations. The complex of N2 and P3 components may serve as a screening mechanism through which observers allocate their attentions to more important or relevant events and screen out false environmental information. This is the first study to describe and provide a time course of the screening process during pain empathy. These findings shed new light on the understanding of empathic processing.

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Intergroup relationships do not reduce racial bias in empathic neural responses to pain

Cited by 41 publications

References 70 publications

Embodied neural responses to others’ suffering

Embodied neural responses to others’ suffering

Mortality salience enhances racial in-group bias in empathic neural responses to others' suffering

A Screening Mechanism Differentiating True from False Pain during Empathy

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