Out of Sight Out of Mind: Perceived Physical Distance Between the Observer and Someone in Pain Shapes Observer's Neural Empathic Reactions

Abstract

Social and affective relations may shape empathy to others' affective states. Previous studies also revealed that people tend to form very different mental representations of stimuli on the basis of their physical distance. In this regard, embodied cognition and embodied simulation propose that different physical distances between individuals activate different interpersonal processing modes, such that close physical distance tends to activate the interpersonal processing mode typical of socially and affectively close relationships. In Experiment 1, two groups of participants were administered a pain decision task involving upright and inverted face stimuli painfully or neutrally stimulated, and we monitored their neural empathic reactions by means of event-related potentials (ERPs) technique. Crucially, participants were presented with face stimuli of one of two possible sizes in order to manipulate retinal size and perceived physical distance, roughly corresponding to the close and far portions of social distance. ERPs modulations compatible with an empathic reaction were observed only for the group exposed to face stimuli appearing to be at a close social distance from the participants. This reaction was absent in the group exposed to smaller stimuli corresponding to face stimuli observed from a far social distance. In Experiment 2, one different group of participants was engaged in a match-to-sample task involving the two-size upright face stimuli of Experiment 1 to test whether the modulation of neural empathic reaction observed in Experiment 1 could be ascribable to differences in the ability to identify faces of the two different sizes. Results suggested that face stimuli of the two sizes could be equally identifiable. In line with the Construal Level and Embodied Simulation theoretical frameworks, we conclude that perceived physical distance may shape empathy as well as social and affective distance.

Keywords: construal level theory; embodiment; empathy; event-related potentials; physical distance.

FIGURE 1

Timeline of each trial for Experiment 1 (pain decision task): (A) example of a trial for the far social distance condition with a painfully stimulated face; (B) example of a trial for the close social distance condition with a neutrally stimulated face. Original face stimuli have been replaced in (A,B) with actors according to the terms of use of the Eberhardt Lab Face Database.

FIGURE 2

Grand averages of the face-locked ERP waveforms for the upright face stimuli elicited in the pain and neutral stimulation conditions separately for pooled fronto-central (FC) and centro-parietal (CP) electrode site and for close and far social distance.

FIGURE 3

Grand averages of the face-locked ERP waveforms for the inverted face stimuli elicited in the pain and neutral stimulation conditions separately for pooled fronto-central (FC) and centro-parietal (CP) electrode site and for close and far social distance.

FIGURE 4

Timeline of each trial for Experiment 2 (match-to-sample task): (A) example of a trial with faces used for the “far social distance” condition of Experiment 1; (B) example of a trial with faces used for the “close social distance” condition of Experiment 1. Original face stimuli have been replaced in (A,B) with actors according to the terms of use of the Eberhardt Lab Face Database.

FIGURE 5

Bar chart displaying mean rating scores for each condition for Experiment 2. Error bars represent standard errors.