Exploring Empathic Space: Correlates of Perspective Transformation Ability and Biases in Spatial Attention Export

@article{citeulike:5059633, abstract = {<p>Separate lines of research have noted recruitment of parietal cortex during tasks involving visuo-spatial processes and empathy. To explore the relationship between these two functions, a self-other perspective transformation task and a task of spatial attention (line bisection) were administered to 40 healthy participants (19 women). Performance on these tasks was examined in relation to self-reported empathy. Rightward biases in line bisection correlated positively with trait-level self-reported empathic concern, suggesting a left hemisphere mediation of this prosocial personality trait. Unexpectedly, speed of perspective taking in the self-other transformation task correlated <italic>negatively</italic> with empathic concern, but only in women, which we interpret in light of gender differences in empathy and strategies for egocentric mental transformations. Together, the findings partially support the commonalities in visuo-spatial attention, perspective-taking and empathy. More broadly, they shed additional light on the relationship between basic cognitive functions and complex social constructs.</p>}, author = {Thakkar, Katharine N. and Brugger, Peter and Park, Sohee}, citeulike-article-id = {5059633}, citeulike-linkout-0 = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0005864}, day = {10}, doi = {10.1371/journal.pone.0005864}, journal = {PLoS ONE}, keywords = {autism, empathy, gender}, month = {June}, number = {6}, pages = {e5864+}, posted-at = {2009-07-05 01:40:13}, priority = {2}, publisher = {Public Library of Science}, title = {Exploring Empathic Space: Correlates of Perspective Transformation Ability and Biases in Spatial Attention}, url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0005864}, volume = {4}, year = {2009} }

TY - JOUR ID - citeulike:5059633 L3 - citeulike-article-id:5059633 N2 - <p>Separate lines of research have noted recruitment of parietal cortex during tasks involving visuo-spatial processes and empathy. To explore the relationship between these two functions, a self-other perspective transformation task and a task of spatial attention (line bisection) were administered to 40 healthy participants (19 women). Performance on these tasks was examined in relation to self-reported empathy. Rightward biases in line bisection correlated positively with trait-level self-reported empathic concern, suggesting a left hemisphere mediation of this prosocial personality trait. Unexpectedly, speed of perspective taking in the self-other transformation task correlated <italic>negatively</italic> with empathic concern, but only in women, which we interpret in light of gender differences in empathy and strategies for egocentric mental transformations. Together, the findings partially support the commonalities in visuo-spatial attention, perspective-taking and empathy. More broadly, they shed additional light on the relationship between basic cognitive functions and complex social constructs.</p> IS - 6 JF - PLoS ONE TI - Exploring Empathic Space: Correlates of Perspective Transformation Ability and Biases in Spatial Attention PB - Public Library of Science VL - 4 SP - e5864 KW - autism KW - empathy KW - gender AU - Thakkar, Katharine AU - Brugger, Peter AU - Park, Sohee PY - 2009/06/10/ UR - http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0005864 ER -