The Effect of Empathy on Collaborative Remembering from A Second-Person Perspective

doi:10.16719/j.cnki.1671-6981.20230528

Abstract

Abstract: People usually retrieve and share past experience or knowledge with others, which promotes the formation of collective memory shared within group members. As a fundamental ability to collaborate with others, the effect of empathy on collaborative remembering has attracted widespread interest. Evidence based on behavioral studies has speculated that during the collaborative remembering process of two or more people, the speaker's selective retrieval practice of target items could induce the listener's synchronous “covert retrieval”. Neuroscience studies at the single-brain level revealed that the listener's brain activity during listening to the speaker's selective retrieval practice was similar to that of speaker in the process of remembering. In daily life, however, remembering takes place in a real-time two-way social interaction. Therefore, this study adopted a second-person perspective, and investigated the brain mechanisms of memory retrieval in social interaction and the effect of empathy in this process.
We used the retrieval practice paradigm of two-person interaction in the current study. All the participants were randomly paired into speaker-listener dyads. The neural activities in the prefrontal cortex (PFC) and right temporal parietal junction (rTPJ) of both the speaker and the listener in each dyad were simultaneously recorded, using functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS)-based hyperscanning while they performed the interactive retrieval task. After the final retrieval test, the proportion of correct retrieval of related items was assessed. In order to measure the empathy index, all the participants were asked to complete the scale of “the Empathy Quotient, (EQ)” before the experiment.
Behavioral analysis showed that the dyads' empathy was positively correlated with their retrieval accuracy of related items under the retrieval practice paradigm of two-person interaction. The functional imaging results showed that compared to resting state, the interpersonal neural synchronization (INS) in right the temporal parietal junction (rTPJ) was significantly increased during collaborative remembering. Combining the behavioral results with the imaging results, we found that the increased INS in rTPJ was positively correlated with empathy and the retrieval accuracy of related items respectively. Finally, such increased INS mediated the relationship between empathy and the retrieval accuracy of related items in speaker-listener dyads.
To sum up, this study demonstrated that empathy had an effect on the outcome of collaborative remembering. In the process of this real-time social interaction, the INS in rTPJ was significantly increased compared to resting state, and such increased INS mediated the contribution of empathy to the retrieval accuracy of related items in speaker-listener dyads. Our results further support that the INS plays an important role in the study of social interaction as a reliable neuro-marker for measuring the relationship between two interactive brains.

Key words: empathy, collaborative remembering, second-person perspective, interpersonal neural synchronization (INS)

摘要： 共情是人们进行社会互动的基本能力。为了探究共情在社会互动提取中的作用,本研究采用“第二人称”视角,在双脑水平上考察共情对社会互动提取的影响。结果显示,在互动提取范式下,互动双方右侧颞顶联合区表现出脑间活动同步性的增强,且这种脑间活动同步性的增强在双方共情能力对记忆准确性的影响中起到了完全中介的作用。以上结果为理解共情影响社会互动提取的群体脑机制提供了实证依据。

关键词: 共情, 互动提取, 第二人称视角, 脑间活动同步性

Zhang Huan, Li Jingwen, Wang Haiman, Ahati Shamali, He Yunfeng, Lu Chunming. The Effect of Empathy on Collaborative Remembering from A Second-Person Perspective[J]. Journal of Psychological Science, 2023, 46(5): 1254-1261.

张环, 李婧文, 王海曼, 沙玛丽·阿哈提, 何云凤, 卢春明. 共情在社会互动提取中的作用：第二人称的视角 ^*[J]. 心理科学, 2023, 46(5): 1254-1261.

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