Chimpanzees’ attentional and physiological responses to others’ pain

Pain Catastrophising Affects Cortical Responses to Viewing Pain in Others

Pain catastrophising is an exaggerated cognitive attitude implemented during pain or when thinking about pain. Catastrophising was previously associated with increased pain severity, emotional distress and disability in chronic pain patients, and is also a contributing factor in the development of neuropathic pain. To investigate the neural basis of how pain catastrophising affects pain observe...

Empathic neural responses to others' pain depend on monetary reward.

Human empathy is not merely a resonance with others' physical condition, but is modulated by social factors. Using functional magnetic resonance imaging, the present study demonstrated an increased brain empathic response to others in pain when they received no rather than a large reward, with increments of the ACC, aMCC, insula and postcentral gyrus in the pain matrix and temporoparietal junct...

Anxiety and Callous-Unemotional Traits: Physiological and Behavioral Responses to Others' Distress

Affective and physiological responses to the suffering of others: compassion and vagal activity.

Compassion is an affective response to another's suffering and a catalyst of prosocial behavior. In the present studies, we explore the peripheral physiological changes associated with the experience of compassion. Guided by long-standing theoretical claims, we propose that compassion is associated with activation in the parasympathetic autonomic nervous system through the vagus nerve. Across 4...

Chimpanzees know that others make inferences.

If chimpanzees are faced with two opaque boards on a table, in the context of searching for a single piece of food, they do not choose the board lying flat (because if food was under there it would not be lying flat) but, rather, they choose the slanted one- presumably inferring that some unperceived food underneath is causing the slant. Here we demonstrate that chimpanzees know that other chim...