Moving beyond the lab: investigating empathy through the Empirical 5E approach

Abstract

Empathy is a complex and multifaceted phenomenon that plays a crucial role in human social interactions. Recent developments in social neuroscience have provided valuable insights into the neural underpinnings and bodily mechanisms underlying empathy. This methodology often prioritizes precision, replicability, internal validity, and confound control. However, fully understanding the complexity of empathy seems unattainable by solely relying on artificial and controlled laboratory settings, while overlooking a comprehensive view of empathy through an ecological experimental approach. In this article, we propose articulating an integrative theoretical and methodological framework based on the 5E approach (the “E”s stand for embodied, embedded, enacted, emotional, and extended perspectives of empathy), highlighting the relevance of studying empathy as an active interaction between embodied agents, embedded in a shared real-world environment. In addition, we illustrate how a novel multimodal approach including mobile brain and body imaging (MoBi) combined with phenomenological methods, and the implementation of interactive paradigms in a natural context, are adequate procedures to study empathy from the 5E approach. In doing so, we present the Empirical 5E approach (E5E) as an integrative scientific framework to bridge brain/body and phenomenological attributes in an interbody interactive setting. Progressing toward an E5E approach can be crucial to understanding empathy in accordance with the complexity of how it is experienced in the real world.

Empathy bodyssence: temporal dynamics of sensorimotor and physiological responses and the subjective experience in synchrony with the other’s suffering

“…Therefore, the conclusions raised in this article are limited to the laboratory context. The authors propose to change the classical neuroscience paradigm to paradigms that have a greater natural context (i.e., with multisensory contexts, free movement, and real interaction with others; Troncoso et al, 2023 ). However, our study advances the ecology by allowing participants to move freely in a bipedal position.…”

“…This cycle of perception and action through the body has been a prominent focus in the field over the past few decades. Studies examining the role of the body have investigated movement responses, autonomic reactions, and the activation of various areas of the motor control system in response to images or videos of another person in pain [for reviews, see Riečanský and Lamm, 2019 and Troncoso et al, 2023 ].…”

“…Current methodologies, largely centered on correlating neurophysiological and subjective data (self-report questionnaires), may not fully capture the intrinsic dynamics of empathy within lived and situational contexts ( Varela et al, 1991 ; Gallagher, 2003 ; De Jaegher and Di Paolo, 2007 ; Olivares et al, 2015 ). This is where the enactive approach, prioritizing the phenomenological experience and the mutual co-constitution of agent and environment, offers a unique and complementary lens for understanding empathy ( Varela et al, 1991 ; Thompson, 2007 ; Colombetti, 2014 ; Newen et al, 2018 ; Troncoso et al, 2023 ). This approach proposes that the primary source of experience and understanding of others is through and with the body ( Gallagher, 2012 ; Tanaka, 2015 ; Fuchs, 2017 ).…”

“…Therefore, in this research, our objective is to explore “bodyssence” more deeply within the context of empathy and to examine how the temporal evolution of motor, physiological, and phenomenological correlates, in synchrony with other, shapes our empathetic consciousness. Thus, we employed a refinement of Varela’s neurophenomenological program ( Varela, 1996 ) termed the empirical 5E approach ( Troncoso et al, 2023 ), in which data from the sensorimotor system and physiological responses are collected using a mobile brain–body imaging system (MoBi) alongside the subjective experience. Participants were exposed to videos of people in physical accident situations (empathy for pain condition) and neutral videos that allowed the assessment of a baseline response from the participants (baseline condition).…”

From body to world: empathy and the transformative power of cinematic imagination

“…In fact, our ability to follow the actions and emotions of characters on a screen relies on the same neural circuits and processes that make possible our real real-life interactions (see Gallese and Guerra, 2020 ). In this regard, 4E approaches to cognition, highlighting its embodied, embedded, enactive, and extended nature—and 5E approaches, including emotion as the fifth “E” (Troncoso et al, 2023 )—help us not only to explore the multidimensionality of embodied empathy but also understand our condition of spectators as dynamic entities immersed in a surrounding world. Furthermore, they allow us to frame the interdisciplinary study of human cognition in relation to cultural phenomena such as literature and film (see Mancing and William, 2022 ).…”