Grau de empatia e resposta eletrofisiológica do córtex cerebral a expressões emocionais faciais em adultos

Abstract

The aim of this research was to evaluate the correlation between the level of empathy and the electrophysiological response of the cerebral cortex to audiovisual stimuli with human faces expressing different emotions. Empathy is a process that enables the sharing of emotional states and the understanding of other people's feelings, involving affective and cognitive aspects. Research in Social Cognitive Neuroscience using Electroencephalography (EEG) has pointed out that, in the case of stimuli with emotional expressions, the two dimensions of empathy can be identified differently in event-related potential (ERP). While affective empathy relates to the early response (P100 and N170), the cognitive aspect of empathy can be verified through late positive potential (P300 and LPP). In this research, 18 subjects were exposed to emotional expressions of happy, anger, and sadness through different audio-visual stimuli and responded to Interpersonal Reactivity Index (IRI), composed of four sub-scales, two cognitive, Perspective Taking and Fantasy, and two affective, Personal Distress and Empathic Concern. Electrophysiological activity was measured through an electroencephalogram (EEG) system of 32 channels. The results indicate significant correlations between the level of empathy, specifically in the Perspective Taking dimension, and all ERP components evaluated, P100 in the occipital region (Oz | r = -0.73), N170 in the temporal region (TP9 | r = 0.72), P300 in the central parietal region (Cz | r = 0.58) and LPP in the frontal region (Fz | r = 0.71). We conclude that the level of empathy, demonstrated through the subjective empathy scale, influences electrophysiological response of the cerebral cortex in all components.