Two aspects to empathy

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As many of us know, there are two aspects to empathy, Cognitive Empathy, the intellectual understanding of how someone feels and their motivation, and Affective Empathy, the physical feeling of another's emotion, and apparently Cognitive Empathy is impaired in Autism while Affective Empathy is not. However, there is a bit more to mechanics than just that. Looking at the mechanics of empathy and the two aspects, I've concluded their is two things in the mind that are related to empathy. One is feeling an emotion. The other is thinking of an emotion. Now, while those with alexithymia would have difficulty translating from the emotional level the cognetive level, and psychopaths wouldn't translate from the cognetive level to the emotional level, most people can deduce what they feeling, and they can also feel emotions if they think about them, which is why Cognitive Empathy and Emotional Empathy are usually just labeled as empathy. This leads to the next question: For most people, does empathy start on the cognitive or emotional level, and does it vary depending on the circumstances? If it starts on one level and empathy to that level is impaired, then it would appear that the other form empathy is impaired as well, and if it starts on one level, and translation from that level to the other is impaired than the other form of empathy would also appear to be impaired. This leads to the big question: What forms of empathy and translation processes are actually impaired in autism?

I don't have answers for you, but it's a very interesting question. I would guess that people with normal function would experience both cognitive and affective empathies pretty much simultaneously because of better connectivity between the brain hemispheres. Other than alexithymia, the only problems I could think of would be the missing or misreading of social cues leading to a seemingly unempathetic response. I'm curious to what other ideas people may have on the subject.

not coming from an intellectual level, i can only say that i FEEL the pain of others viscerally. the last time i was in the ER there was this poor little girl screaming in agony because she was a "tough stick" and her veins resisted their attempts at IV placement, and i wept despite my best efforts to remain stoic, and the nurse in the room with me looked at me like i was touched in the head or something.

Wiki seems to do a good job of explaining it:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Empathy#Co ... ve_empathy

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i get frustrated and scared and very insecure at some people who are suffering because i desperately want to comfort them but have no earthly clue HOW.

Well yes, wikipedia says that, but there is still much to think over. For example, why is the empathic concern reported as being lower? Of course the first thing that needs to be deduced is how empathic concern was self-reported, and how the varies aspects relate. Because of relations it's really impossible for one aspect to be affected without somehow affecting the others, so the question is exactly how the aspects are effected at the root, and what effect that has on the other aspects.

It is a complex issue, but it becoming better understood through new research in neuroscience. The "empathy spectrum" and all the potential myths and complexity that are part of it result in many misconceptions. One of those misconceptions is that psychopaths do not feel emotions, because they do not show empathetic concern for others. According to recent research on this issue they experience "selfish" emotions but not pro-social emotions.

http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the ... manipulate

Depressed people and those that experience "compassion fatigue" can lose their ability to feel pro-social emotions, the emotional feelings associated with empathy along with the motivation for empathetic concern. People with PTSD often experience this along with Alexithymia. However, that does not make them psychopaths anymore that it makes them autistic.

Psychopathy and Anti-Social disorder (dsm5 definition) are not labeled as such until there is evidence that there are activities against the established social norms. That keeps some stock traders and politicians outside of a diagnosis..

A lack of regard for the safety and/or pain of others can be lost as well as gained, depending on inherent and environmental factors.

The linked article below, is from one of the world's leading experts on empathy, Tania Singer, from the Max Planck Institute for Brain Research in Sweden. She does a good job of explaining how high levels of emotional empathy for another person experienced as personal distress, is not always a good thing, and how people that regulate this emotion into warm pro-social feelings of compassion for others are often more resilient.

It is likely that Alexithymia makes that difficult to do. Those that do regulate empathy into compassion well appear to make good doctors, cops, EMT's, nurses, and all those other professions, where some of those professionals show tremendous amounts of compassion without getting overwhelmed by sharing the pain of others.

The full article on empathy from Wiki pursues this in better detail than most sources I have seen in one place; it is where I got the Singer link below from.

I feel like I may just be starting to really understand how empathy works as a result of the work the folks at Wiki have been doing.

It's interesting information when one looks at the complexity of the autism spectrum and the "empathy spectrum", and what factors may underlie the potential result of too much personal distress of emotional empathy, potential repression of it, or successful regulation of emotional empathy into warm feelings of compassion for others, and the actions that may follow whether it is just being there for someone or some type of heroic act to save someone's life..

http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/201 ... on-burnout

Well of course psychopaths feel emotions, if they didn't why would they do anything? You don't need to be a genius to deduce that much, and you certainly don't need to conduct a study.

The actual research from Roger's is linked in the Wiki article; the methodology is paraphrased in Wiki. The empathic concern was self-reported as lower when there was not cognitive awareness (cognitive empathy) of the other person's distress.

However, when the variable of deficit in cognitive empathy was taken out of the equation, the individuals in the study with Asperger's, who were all highly educated adults, with an IQ on average of close to 121 (details from the full study), demonstrated equal amounts of empathic concern as control group members without Asperger's syndrome.

The adults with Asperger's experienced higher levels of personal distress when they were aware of another person's pain. These individuals with Asperger's were far from a severe deficit in cognitive empathy but they measured on average as substantially lower than the control group.

Social theory of mind has already been determined in several studies as higher in individuals with Asperger's syndrome as compared to individuals with Autistic Disorder with language impairments and/or intellectual disability.

It potentially cuts both ways, as while those with autistic disorder might have substantially lower social theory of mind (cognitive empathy), than individuals with Asperger's syndrome, they may also not experience the personal distress of the pain of others at levels of the same intensity of discomfort.

There isn't much research in this area specific to autistic disorder that I am aware of. Limitations of self reporting, for those with language impairments and intellectual disability have been cited as a reason for this. Similar issues of limitation are reported associated with other co-morbid issues like personality disorders and measures of depression in autistic disorder.

Oh, and the thing about the studying finding people with AS being less likely to comfort others confuses me, not because I don't believe it, but because I'm pretty sure I saw it say the exact opposite on an earlier version of the page.

Not everyone has your insight on this issue, as not everyone realizes that emotions for the most part underlie the human decision making process. It is likely that this is part of the reason that some individuals with Alexithymia have difficulties in executive functioning, or even basic self care issues, even though they may have been assessed with extremely high measured levels of IQ at some point in their life.

I have had to produce studies in the past on this forum, to convince people that their decision making process was for the most part based on emotion, even though they may not experience the same level and depth of emotions as some other individuals.

More recent research, linked below, shows that mechanical cognition and social cognition repress each other through separate neural pathways in the brain, but the reptilian emotions are still working in the background as motivation, in part, for the decision making process. But, this still could be, in part, why some people with high IQ's have a hard time finding their way around in social interaction, as they may be more likely to spend more time using mechanical cognition rather than social cognition.

In a way that ability of intellect and mechanical cognition may become a self-fulfilling prophecy as one can be led to where their strength of abilities take them in life. Could be part of the source of difficulty for the "absent minded professor".. Or, even in part, why AQ or Aspie Scores can vary significantly over the course of one lifetime or even one year in the same individual.

And, potentially part of the reason why 80% of individuals on the spectrum may score into the "autism" range on those tests/quizzes, but the tests are less than 10% predictive of whether or not someone would actually be officially diagnosed on the spectrum by those tests as a "risk" assessment alone.

Pathways in the brain associated with social cognition or mechanical cognition likely become stronger or weaker pathways, depending on how they are used over time.

It doesn't take a genius to figure that stuff out, just someone willing to think about it, perhaps at the peril of their social cognition..

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/ar ... 1912010646
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/20 ... 161416.htm

Affective empathy is really what people refer to as sympathy, which isn't impaired in those with an ASD.

Best to just think of empathy as that initial feeling when you see someone without them communicating what they're feeling. A lack of empathy would mean you feel little or nothing until it's communicated to you, then the sympathy can kick in like anyone else.

Different people use different terms though. Just semantics, really, as they all say the same thing in the end (even if using different descriptors).

I've done the same. People here tend to react very badly. Some even claim that decision making without emotions is superior, even though without emotions decision making is actually difficult to impossible.

I did find the lengths people would go to in order to dispute the idea rather interesting.

The earlier version of the page did not explain the difference in the study of how the individuals with Asperger's syndrome reported higher levels of personal distress as compared to empathic concern. It just generally stated that people with Autism show equal amounts of demonstrated empathic concern (comforting the other person), when they become cognitively aware of the other person's distress.

This was not an accurate representation of the demographic of the study, that was specific to adults with Asperger's that were on average college graduates with assessed IQ's of about 121, which closely matched the demographic studied of individuals without Asperger's syndrome in the study.

In other words the findings in the Roger's study cited are only specific to a tiny demographic of a subgroup of the spectrum, which is interestingly enough, what one often finds in the online autism community environments, specifically on this website, with the recent informal poll done here on adult outcomes, that measured a median IQ of 130 for those that responded in the comments section.

High IQ's don't happen without substantial sources and sensitivity to dopamine and memory, nor without an adequate supply of emotions to seal the destiny of the memories, and motivate action. That also can be a moving target over a lifetime, depending on the environment one is exposed to.

This is part of where the "Intense World theory of Autism" may come into play, but not everyone on the spectrum is hypersensitive to their environment or likely hypersensitive to dopamine, nor are those individuals that are hypersensitive likely reflective of the full identified diagnosed spectrum.

This issue may also be, in part, the origin of conflicting studies that show some individuals on the spectrum with hyper activation of mirror neurons opposed to other with hypo activation of mirror neurons.

Just more evidence of a spectrum of symptoms rather than clearly defined disorders, and why sweeping generalizations or unified theories do not work for a spectrum of differences.

By earlier version I meant a much earlier version that didn't even mention people with AS reporting anything. However, I might be mistaking it for a Tv Tropes page, but I might not be.

I agree, the term affective empathy or emotional empathy was developed as a term in contrast to the term cognitive empathy.

According to the research that is very limited and specific to individuals with Asperger's syndrome, the empathic concern/expression of sympathy and compassion/demonstration of empathy (all 3 descriptions often used interchangeably to describe empathy), is not necessarily limited if there is adequate awareness of the distress of others through the ability of cognitive empathy/theory of mind(two terms often used interchangeably).

However, the emotional contagion associated with personal distress, is not necessarily followed by empathic concern/expression of sympathy and compassion/demonstration of empathy, if one draws away from the feelings of others because they find them too uncomfortable or painful. That can result in an additional limitation of the demonstration of empathic concern.

In social interaction all that counts is the interaction. If the empathy is not communicated to someone through some method of expression, there is no effective empathic communication to another human being.

And, if the net result is a deficit/difficulty/trouble(all synonyms used that are more "politically correct" than the phrase "a lack of") in the ability to demonstrate empathic concern, it is a deficit regardless if one has the inherent ability to recognize and feel the distress of others very strongly through emotional contagion which can result in personal distress rather than a demonstration of empathic concern for others.

At this point this type of personal distress in some cases may not even be defined as a form of empathy, because it doesn't always result in pro-social behavior.

This is a key issue of difficulty in empathy that is often not described adequately or clearly enough when issues of difficulty associated with empathy among individuals with Asperger's syndrome is brought up.

There does not appear to be enough research to come close to understand how this might fully impact other subgroups of the spectrum, except that some children severely impacted by symptoms associated with autistic disorder, are characterized as oblivious to the distress of others.

Potential personal distress generated and resulting from high levels of emotional contagion with emotions expressed or pain of others, likely isn't any easier to deal with, with impairments in language to be able to vocally express or internally understand the source of the personal distress (discomfort/pain) when it is experienced by some individuals on the spectrum more severely impacted by issues like language impairments. And, it seems like an obvious potential precipitating factor for what is described as temper tantrums and/or meltdowns.

The issue of Alexithymia, and the awareness of boundaries between self and others associated with theory of mind/cognitive empathy in ASD's is likely related to this issue of personal distress and ASD.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personal_distress