Speaker
Description
Introduction: Empathy, comprising both affective and cognitive components, crucially relies on empathic accuracy (EA)—the ability to correctly recognize others' emotions. Emotional contagion, facilitated by facial mimicry, enhances EA by improving emotional understanding. The enfacement illusion, a visuo-tactile multisensory paradigm, has been shown to modulate self–other boundaries, amplifying mimicry and emotional contagion.
Since adaptive emotional processing also depends on metacontrol—the dynamic balance between cognitive persistence and flexibility—this study investigated the interplay between emotional contagion, metacontrol, and empathic accuracy. Metacontrol was indexed via the EEG aperiodic exponent, where lower values reflect persistence and higher values indicate flexibility. Previous evidence links negative emotions to increased persistence and positive emotions to greater flexibility.
Method: Participants completed an emotion recognition task involving familiar and unfamiliar faces displaying happy, sad, or morphed expressions, following synchronous or asynchronous visuo-tactile multisensory interpersonal stimulation. Reaction times and EEG signals analyzed with FOOOF (Fitting Oscillations and One-Over-F) were recorded to assess the effects of emotional contagion and face familiarity on EA.
Results: Behavioral results showed that the synchronous enfacement illusion enhanced EA for happy expressions, particularly for familiar faces, as indicated by faster and more accurate responses. Further, a non-significant trend suggested faster recognition of unfamiliar sad faces.
Conclusion: The findings are discussed in light of EEG findings suggesting that EA (triggered by emotional contagion) might temporarily tip the metacontrol balance toward flexibility, supporting dynamic and adaptive emotional responses.
