情境真实性对悲伤移情调节的ERP证据

The ERP Evidence of Modulation of Situation Reality on Empathy for Sadness

以真正意义上的情绪——悲伤诱发的移情为研究对象,以具有强烈社会现实意义的表现地震情境的图片为实验材料,突破囿于疼痛（主要为感觉）层面研究移情的局限,运用ERP技术,探讨情境真实性对移情的调节。结果表明：移情研究可向真正具有情绪特性的悲伤移情推进;现实地震情境图片可作为诱发悲伤移情的实验材料;情境真实性能调节悲伤移情（晚期阶段,真实地震情境图片比电影地震情境图片诱发了更为强烈的移情反应）;真实和电影情境图片诱发的ERP平均波幅分别在300~350 ms和160~180 ms,与主观感受相关显著,佐证了真实性不同的两种情境所诱发的情绪反应间的分离。

This study adopted empathy induced by sadness which is a kind of true human emotions as research object, using true and observable earthquake situation pictures with strong social reality meaning as stimuli materials. Based on the neuroscience perspective, previous research on empathy was mainly limited to sensation（especially pain）, and the present study broke those limitations. With the event-related potential technologies and the picture perception paradigms, we explored whether the extent of situation reality could modulate empathy for sadness. Fourteen right handed undergraduate and postgraduate students（7 males and 7 females） were recruited to take part in the study. Participants were presented with earthquake pictures（sad stimulus） or life pictures（neutral stimulus） that were in real or film situation which was formed through instructions. Participants were instructed to view naturally. The behavioral results showed that subjective empathic response which induced by the real earthquake situation pictures was more intense than that induced by the film earthquake situation pictures. The ERP results showed early differentiation between earthquake and life pictures over the frontal-central area at 180 ms after sensory stimulation and a long-latency empathic response was observed after 300 ms over the central–parietal regions. The late empathic response was modulated by situation reality. Moreover, the mean ERP amplitudes induced by the film and real earthquake situation pictures at 160~180 ms and 300~350 ms were respectively correlated with the subjective reports of the degree of perceived sadness of self. These results suggest that empathy research can be pushed to empathy for sadness with real emotional characteristics. Earthquake situation pictures can be used as experiment materials that induced empathy for sadness. The different degrees of situational realities formed by the cognitive evaluation which is based on induction can modulate the empathy for sadness and it happens in the late stage of finely controlled processing period.