Dissecting the computational architecture of social inference mechanisms

Empathy and contextual social cognition

Empathy is a highly flexible and adaptive process that allows for the interplay of prosocial behavior in many different social contexts. Empathy appears to be a very situated cognitive process, embedded with specific contextual cues that trigger different automatic and controlled responses. In this review, we summarize relevant evidence regarding social context modulation of empathy for pain. Several contextual factors, such as stimulus reality and personal experience, affectively link with other factors, emotional cues, threat information, group membership, and attitudes toward others to influence the affective, sensorimotor, and cognitive processing of empathy. Thus, we propose that the frontoinsular-temporal network, the so-called social context network model (SCNM), is recruited during the contextual processing of empathy. This network would (1) update the contextual cues and use them to construct fast predictions (frontal regions), (2) coordinate the internal (body) and external milieus (insula), and (3) consolidate the context-target associative learning of empathic processes (temporal sites). Furthermore, we propose these context-dependent effects of empathy in the framework of the frontoinsular-temporal network and examine the behavioral and neural evidence of three neuropsychiatric conditions (Asperger syndrome, schizophrenia, and the behavioral variant of frontotemporal dementia), which simultaneously present with empathy and contextual integration impairments. We suggest potential advantages of a situated approach to empathy in the assessment of these neuropsychiatric disorders, as well as their relationship with the SCNM.

The "Reading the Mind in the Eyes" test: systematic review of psychometric properties and a validation study in Italy

INTRODUCTION

The "Reading the Mind in the Eyes" test (henceforth, Eyes test) is a simple but advanced Theory of Mind test, and it is widely used across different cultures. This study assessed the reliability and construct (convergent and discriminant) validity of the Eyes test in Italy.

METHODS

A sample of 18- to 32-year-old undergraduate students of both sexes (N=200, males=46%) were invited to fill in the Italian version of the Eyes test, the Empathy Quotient (EQ), the Toronto Alexithymia Scale (TAS), and the Marlowe-Crowne Social Desirability Scale (SDS).

RESULTS

Internal consistency (Cronbach's alpha) was .605. Confirmatory factor analysis provided evidence for a unidimensional model, with maximal weighted internal consistency reliability=.719. Test-retest reliability for the Eyes test, as measured by intraclass correlation coefficient, was .833 (95% confidence interval=.745 to .902). Females scored significantly higher than males on both the Eyes test and the EQ, replicating earlier work. Those participants who scored lower than 30 on the EQ (n=10) also scored lower on the Eyes test than those who did not (p<.05). Eyes test scores were not related to social desirability.

CONCLUSIONS

This study confirms the validity of the Eyes test. Both internal consistency and test-retest stability were good for the Italian version of the Eyes test.