Mirror-touch synaesthesia: Difficulties inhibiting the other

Santiesteban, Idalmis; Bird, Geoffrey; Tew, Oliver; Cioffi, Maria Cristina; Banissy, Michael J.

doi:10.1016/j.cortex.2015.06.019

Cited by 28 publications

(25 citation statements)

References 22 publications

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“…This contrasts with the profile of conscious vicarious perception, where increased imitation (e.g. hyper-imitation in imitationinhibition tasks found in mirror-touch synaesthesia; [33]) and greater activity in neural networks associated with empathy for pain in conscious vicarious pain responders have been reported [6,7]. Studying alexithymia in conscious various pain responders is therefore of importance, as based on current literature a prediction of lower alexithymia and heightened interoception in individuals who experience conscious vicarious pain would be expected.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 70%

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Atypical bodily self-awareness in vicarious pain responders

Bowling

Botan

Santiesteban

et al. 2019

Phil. Trans. R. Soc. B

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Vicarious perception refers to the ability to co-represent the experiences of others. Prior research has shown considerable inter-individual variability in vicarious perception of pain, with some experiencing conscious sensations of pain on their own body when viewing another person in pain (conscious vicarious perception/mirror-pain synaesthesia). Self–Other Theory proposes that this conscious vicarious perception may result from impairments in self–other distinction and maintaining a coherent sense of bodily self. In support of this, individuals who experience conscious vicarious perception are more susceptible to illusions of body ownership and agency. However, little work has assessed whether trait differences in bodily self-awareness are associated with conscious vicarious pain. Here we addressed this gap by examining individual difference factors related to awareness of the body, in conscious vicarious pain responders. Increased self-reported depersonalization and interoceptive sensibility was found for conscious vicarious pain responders compared with non-responders, in addition to more internally oriented thinking (associated with lower alexithymia). There were no significant differences in trait anxiety. Results indicate that maintaining a stable sense of the bodily self may be important for vicarious perception of pain, and that vicarious perception might also be enhanced by attention towards internal bodily states. This article is part of a discussion meeting issue ‘Bridging senses: novel insights from synaesthesia’.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 70%

“…With growing evidence of broader differences in the representation of the self and others in conscious vicarious pain and MTS (e.g. [33,79]; also see [9] for review), the extent to which these experiences can be considered a form of synaesthesia has been called into question (e.g. [80,81]).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Atypical bodily self-awareness in vicarious pain responders

Bowling

Botan

Santiesteban

et al. 2019

Phil. Trans. R. Soc. B

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“…In another study by Baron-Cohen et al [28] however, synesthetes did not perform better on the Reading the Mind in the Eyes test, an assessment of 'theory of mind' abilities and social understanding [42], and they scored lower on the Social Skills component of the Empathy Quotient. In Santiesteban et al [43], mirror-touch synesthetes also did not perform differentially on a test of theory of mind, the movie for the assessment of social cognition (MASC, [44]). It is possible that the lower social abilities reported in the Baron-Cohen et al study can be explained by a high occurrence of autism (30%) among the included mirror-sensory synesthetes.…”

Section: Empathy Theory Of Mind and Altruism In Mirror-sensory Synementioning

confidence: 92%

Enhanced self-reported affect and prosocial behaviour without differential physiological responses in mirror-sensory synesthesia

Ioumpa¹,

Clausner²,

Fisher³

et al. 2019

Preprint

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Mirror-sensory synesthetes mirror the pain or touch that they observe in other people on their own bodies. This type of synesthesia has been associated with enhanced empathy. We investigated whether the enhanced empathy of people with mirror-sensory synesthesia influences experience of situations involving touch or pain, and whether it affects their prosocial decision making. Mirror-sensory synesthetes (N=18, all female), verified with a touch-interference paradigm, were compared to a similar number of age-matched control individuals (all female). Participants viewed arousing images depicting pain or touch; we recorded subjective valence and arousal ratings, and physiological responses, hypothesizing more extreme reactions in synesthetes. The subjective impact of positive and negative images was stronger in synesthetes than in control participants; the stronger the reported synesthesia, the more extreme the picture ratings. However, there was no evidence for differential physiological or hormonal responses to arousing pictures. Prosocial decision making was assessed with an economic game assessing altruism, in which participants had to divide money between themselves and a second player. Mirror-sensory synesthetes donated more money than non-synesthetes, showing enhanced prosocial behaviour, and also scored higher on the Interpersonal Reactivity Index as a measure of empathy. Our study demonstrates the subjective impact of mirror-sensory synesthesia and its stimulating influence on prosocial behaviour.

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“…This account further predicts that mirror-touch synaesthetes should show impairments in other social cognitive domains where the control of other-relevant representations is required. Thus, it is noteworthy that mirror-touch synaesthetes show impairments in the ability to control imitation (requiring inhibition of other-relevant representations), but are not impaired at visual perspective-taking or ToM (requiring inhibition of self-relevant representations) [37], suggesting a specific impairment in selfother control processes in mirror-touch synaesthesia that may contribute to the documented atypical interpersonal representations of touch and emotion processing in this condition. This provides further evidence that self-other control may contribute to performance in multiple social cognitive domains.…”

Section: (B) Mirror-touch Synaesthesiamentioning

confidence: 99%

Self–other control processes in social cognition: from imitation to empathy

Guzman

Bird

Banissy

et al. 2016

Phil. Trans. R. Soc. B

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114

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One contribution of 16 to a theme issue 'Understanding self and other: from origins to disorders'. We review the evidence that an ability to achieve a precise balance between representing the self and representing other people is crucial in social interaction. This ability is required for imitation, perspective-taking, theory of mind and empathy; and disruption to this ability may contribute to the symptoms of clinical and sub-clinical conditions, including autism spectrum disorder and mirror-touch synaesthesia. Moving beyond correlational approaches, a recent intervention study demonstrated that training participants to control representations of the self and others improves their ability to control imitative behaviour, and to take another's visual perspective. However, it is unclear whether these effects apply to other areas of social interaction, such as the ability to empathize with others. We report original data showing that participants trained to increase self-other control in the motor domain demonstrated increased empathic corticospinal responses (Experiment 1) and self-reported empathy (Experiment 2), as well as an increased ability to control imitation. These results suggest that the ability to control self and other representations contributes to empathy as well as to other types of social interaction.

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Mirror-touch synaesthesia: Difficulties inhibiting the other

Cited by 28 publications

References 22 publications

Atypical bodily self-awareness in vicarious pain responders

Atypical bodily self-awareness in vicarious pain responders

Enhanced self-reported affect and prosocial behaviour without differential physiological responses in mirror-sensory synesthesia

Self–other control processes in social cognition: from imitation to empathy

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