In the Eyes of the Beholder: How Empathy Influences Emotion Perception

Abstract:

This chapter explores the role of empathy in relation to emotion perception, considering it in terms of individual differences as a quantitative trait. It reviews the literature from neuroimaging studies that suggest that discrete basic emotions are processed in different neural regions and networks. Finally, it describes a recent study that reconciles these two approaches to empathy by investigating whether empathy affects how the brain processes discrete emotions.