Isabel Dziobek
Humboldt Universität zu Berlin, Psychology, Faculty Member
Background: While witnessing the suffering of other people results in personal distress, it is not clear whether regulating others' emotions in such situations also comes at an emotional cost for the observer. Methods: This study included... more
Background: While witnessing the suffering of other people results in personal distress, it is not clear whether regulating others' emotions in such situations also comes at an emotional cost for the observer. Methods: This study included 62 subjects and used a newly developed functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) paradigm to investigate mechanisms of self and other emotion regulation via reappraisal while the subject and an interaction partner outside the scanner were facing the same distressing situation simultaneously. The relationship between distress levels and individual differences in emotional and cognitive empathy were also assessed. Results: We found that individuals exhibited especially high levels of personal distress when relating with a partner while both being exposed to aversive photographs and that especially highly empathetic individuals were prone to such personal distress. Moreover, when engaging in social emotion regulation, personal distress was reduced in the observer at a similar rate as in self emotion regulation. FMRI analyses revealed increased activation for other vs. self emotion regulation in the precuneus and the left temporo-parietal junction, which are commonly engaged in social cognition. Furthermore, this activation was associated with lower self-reported stress and decreased sympathetic autonomic activity. While regulating others, precuneus activation exhibited a distinctive functional connectivity profile with parietal emotion regulation regions. Conclusions: This study demonstrates benefits of actively regulating another person's emotions for reducing one's own distress and identifies the precuneus as an important node for social emotion regulation. Given the novelty of the study design, the results are of exploratory and preliminary nature.
The causes of aggressive behavior in children with autism are poorly understood, which limits treatment options. Therefore, this study used behavioral testing and parent reports of 60 children with autism to investigate the interplay of... more
The causes of aggressive behavior in children with autism are poorly understood, which limits treatment options. Therefore, this study used behavioral testing and parent reports of 60 children with autism to investigate the interplay of emotion misinterpretation and hostile attribution bias in the prediction of different aggressive behaviors. Further, the additional impact of dysfunctional emotion regulation was examined. Path analyses indicated that hostile attribution bias increased verbal and covert aggression but not physical aggression and bullying. Dysfunctional emotion regulation had an additional impact on bullying, verbal aggression, and covert aggression. Emotion recognition was positively associated with hostile attribution bias. These findings provide a first insight into a complex interplay of socio-emotional variables; longitudinal studies are needed to examine causal relationships.
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Observing familiar (known, recognisable) and socially relevant (personally important) faces elicits activation in the brain’s reward circuit. Although smiling faces are often used as social rewards in research, it is firstly unclear... more
Observing familiar (known, recognisable) and socially relevant (personally important) faces elicits activation in the brain’s reward circuit. Although smiling faces are often used as social rewards in research, it is firstly unclear whether familiarity and social relevance modulate the processing of faces differently, and secondly whether this processing depends on the feedback context, i.e., if it is different when smiles are delivered depending on performance or in the absence of any action (passive viewing). In this preregistered study, we compared pupillary responses to smiling faces differing in subjective familiarity and social relevance. They were displayed in a passive viewing task and in an active task (a speeded visual short-term memory task). The pupils were affected only in the active task and only by subjective familiarity. Contrary to expectations, smaller dilations were observed in response to more familiar faces. Behavioural ratings supported the superior rewarding c...
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When inferring the mental states of others, individuals’ judgments are influenced by their own state of mind, an effect often referred to as egocentricity. Self–other differentiation is key for an accurate interpretation of other’s mental... more
When inferring the mental states of others, individuals’ judgments are influenced by their own state of mind, an effect often referred to as egocentricity. Self–other differentiation is key for an accurate interpretation of other’s mental states, especially when these differ from one’s own states. It has been suggested that the right supramarginal gyrus (rSMG) is causally involved in overcoming egocentricity in the affective domain. In a double-blind randomized study, 47 healthy adults received anodal (1 mA, 20 min) or sham transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) to the rSMG prior to performing a newly developed paradigm, the self–other facial emotion judgment (SOFE) task. In this task, participants made judgments of facial emotional expressions while having been previously confronted with congruent or incongruent emotion-inducing situations. To differentiate between emotional and cognitive egocentricity, participants additionally completed an established visual perspective-t...
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The level of functioning of individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) varies widely. To better understand the neurobiological mechanism associated with high-functioning ASD, we studied the rare case of a female patient with an... more
The level of functioning of individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) varies widely. To better understand the neurobiological mechanism associated with high-functioning ASD, we studied the rare case of a female patient with an exceptional professional career in the highly competitive academic field of Mathematics. According to the Research Domain Criteria (RDoC) approach, which proposes to describe the basic dimensions of functioning by integrating different levels of information, we conducted four fMRI experiments targeting the (1) social processes domain (Theory of mind (ToM) and face matching), (2) positive valence domain (reward processing), and (3) cognitive domain (N-back). Patient’s data were compared to data of 14 healthy controls (HC). Additionally, we assessed the subjective experience of our case during the experiments. The patient showed increased response times during face matching and achieved a higher total gain in the Reward task, whereas her performance in N-b...
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Establishing direct gaze has been shown to enhance the tendency to automatically imitate the other person’s actions, an effect that seems to be reduced in autism. Most previous studies, however, used experimental tasks that may have... more
Establishing direct gaze has been shown to enhance the tendency to automatically imitate the other person’s actions, an effect that seems to be reduced in autism. Most previous studies, however, used experimental tasks that may have confounded the measurement of automatic imitation with spatial compatibility effects. This calls into question whether gaze cues regulate automatic imitation, or instead affect domain-general processes of response inhibition. Using a task that disentangled imitative from spatial compatibility effects, the current study re-examined the role of autistic traits on the modulation of automatic imitation by direct and averted gaze cues. While our results do not provide evidence for an overall significant influence of gaze on neither automatic imitation nor spatial compatibility, autistic traits were predictive of a reduced inhibition of imitative behaviour following averted gaze. Nonetheless, exploratory analyses suggested that the observed modulation by autis...
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Research in social cognition has shown that our own emotional experiences are an important source of information to understand what other people are feeling. The current study investigated whether individuals project their own affective... more
Research in social cognition has shown that our own emotional experiences are an important source of information to understand what other people are feeling. The current study investigated whether individuals project their own affective states when reading other’s emotional expressions. We used brief autobiographical recall and audiovisual stimuli to induce happy, neutral and sad transient states. After each emotion induction, participants made emotion judgments about ambiguous faces displaying a mixture of happiness and sadness. Using an adaptive psychophysics procedure, we estimated the tendency to perceive the faces as happy under each of the induced affective states. Results demonstrate the occurrence of egocentric projections, such that faces were more likely judged as happy when participants reported being happy as compared to when they were sad. Moreover, the degree of emotional egocentricity was associated with individual differences in perspective-taking, with smaller biase...
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Understanding the association between autonomic nervous system [ANS] function and brain morphology across the lifespan provides important insights into neurovisceral mechanisms underlying health and disease. Resting state ANS activity,... more
Understanding the association between autonomic nervous system [ANS] function and brain morphology across the lifespan provides important insights into neurovisceral mechanisms underlying health and disease. Resting state ANS activity, indexed by measures of heart rate [HR] and its variability [HRV] has been associated with brain morphology, particularly cortical thickness [CT]. While findings have been mixed regarding the anatomical distribution and direction of the associations, these inconsistencies may be due to sex and age differences in HR/HRV and CT. Previous studies have been limited by small sample sizes, which impede the assessment of sex differences and aging effects on the association between ANS function and CT. To overcome these limitations, 20 groups worldwide contributed data collected under similar protocols of CT assessment and HR/HRV recording to be pooled in a mega-analysis (N = 1,218 (50.5% female), mean age 36.7 years (range: 12-87)). Findings suggest that the ...
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Empathy is crucial for successful interpersonal interactions, and it is impaired in many psychiatric and neurological disorders. Action-perception matching, or action simulation mechanisms, have been suggested to facilitate empathy by... more
Empathy is crucial for successful interpersonal interactions, and it is impaired in many psychiatric and neurological disorders. Action-perception matching, or action simulation mechanisms, have been suggested to facilitate empathy by supporting the simulation of perceived experience in others. However, this remains unclear, and the involvement of the action simulation circuit in cognitive empathy (the ability to adopt another's perspective) versus emotional empathy (the capacity to share and react affectively to another's emotional experience) has not been quantitatively compared. Presently, healthy adults completed a classic cognitive empathy task (false belief), an emotional empathy task, and an action simulation button-pressing task during fMRI. Conjunction analyses revealed common recruitment of the inferior frontal gyrus (IFG), thought to be critical for action-perception matching, during both action simulation and emotional, but not cognitive, empathy. Furthermore, ac...
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The empathogen 3,4-methylenedioxymethamphetamine (MDMA) is the prototypical prosocial club drug inducing emotional openness to others. It has recently been shown that acutely applied 3,4-MDMA in fact enhances emotional empathy and... more
The empathogen 3,4-methylenedioxymethamphetamine (MDMA) is the prototypical prosocial club drug inducing emotional openness to others. It has recently been shown that acutely applied 3,4-MDMA in fact enhances emotional empathy and prosocial behavior, while it simultaneously decreases cognitive empathy. However, the long-term effects of 3,4-MDMA use on socio-cognitive functions and social interactions have not been investigated yet. Therefore, we examined emotional and cognitive empathy, social decision-making, and oxytocin plasma levels in chronic 3,4-MDMA users. We tested 38 regular but recently abstinent 3,4-MDMA users and 56 3,4-MDMA-naïve controls with the Movie for the Assessment of Social Cognition, the Multifaceted Empathy Test, and the Distribution Game and the Dictator Game. Drug use was objectively quantified by 6-month hair analyses. Furthermore, oxytocin plasma levels were determined in smaller subgroups (24 3,4-MDMA users, 9 controls). 3,4-MDMA users showed superior cog...
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We present the ToMenovela, a stimulus set that has been developed to provide a set of normatively rated socio-emotional stimuli showing varying amount of characters in emotionally laden interactions for experimental investigations of (i)... more
We present the ToMenovela, a stimulus set that has been developed to provide a set of normatively rated socio-emotional stimuli showing varying amount of characters in emotionally laden interactions for experimental investigations of (i) cognitive and (ii) affective Theory of Mind (ToM), (iii) emotional reactivity, and (iv) complex emotion judgment with respect to Ekman's basic emotions (happiness, anger, disgust, fear, sadness, surprise, Ekman and Friesen, 1975). Stimuli were generated with focus on ecological validity and consist of 190 scenes depicting daily-life situations. Two or more of eight main characters with distinct biographies and personalities are depicted on each scene picture. To obtain an initial evaluation of the stimulus set and to pave the way for future studies in clinical populations, normative data on each stimulus of the set was obtained from a sample of 61 neurologically and psychiatrically healthy participants (31 female, 30 male; mean age 26.74 ± 5.84)...
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Research Interests: Cognitive Science, Magnetic Resonance Imaging, Medicine, Prefrontal Cortex, Emotions, and 15 moreNeural correlates of consciousness, Brain, Humans, Cerebral Cortex, Insula, Female, Male, Amygdala, Autism Spectrum Disorder, Middle Aged, Adult, Emotional Prosody, Functional Neuroimaging, Asperger Syndrome, and Neurosciences
In the current study, we assessed character strengths in individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD, n = 32) and neurotypical controls (n = 32) using the Values in Action Inventory (VIA-IS, Peterson and Seligman 2004) and explored... more
In the current study, we assessed character strengths in individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD, n = 32) and neurotypical controls (n = 32) using the Values in Action Inventory (VIA-IS, Peterson and Seligman 2004) and explored associations with levels of satisfaction with life (SWL). The most frequently endorsed signature strengths (i.e., five top-ranked strengths within an individual's strength ranking) were emotional (humour, love) and interpersonal strengths (kindness, fairness) in the control group, the most frequently endorsed signature strengths in the ASD group were intellectual strengths (open-mindedness, creativity, love of learning). Interpersonal and emotional strengths had, however, the highest positive associations with SWL in the ASD group.
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Individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) often experience difficulties in maintaining romantic relationships. In this study high-functioning adults with ASD were examined concerning their romantic relationship interest and... more
Individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) often experience difficulties in maintaining romantic relationships. In this study high-functioning adults with ASD were examined concerning their romantic relationship interest and experience. Participants, 31 recruited via an outpatient clinic and 198 via an online survey, were asked to answer a number of self-report questionnaires. The total sample comprised 229 high-functioning adults with ASD (40% males, average age: 35 years). Of the total sample, 73% indicated romantic relationship experience and only 7% had no desire to be in a romantic relationship. ASD individuals whose partner was also on the autism spectrum were significantly more satisfied with their relationship than those with neurotypical partners. Severity of autism, schizoid symptoms, empathy skills, and need for social support were not correlated with relationship status. Our findings indicate that the vast majority of high-functioning adults with ASD are interested ...
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Diagnostic criteria for borderline personality disorder (BPD) include instability in identity and interpersonal relationships. Here, we probed whether instability is already present in BPD patients' thoughts about themselves and... more
Diagnostic criteria for borderline personality disorder (BPD) include instability in identity and interpersonal relationships. Here, we probed whether instability is already present in BPD patients' thoughts about themselves and others. We tested BPD patients (N=27) and healthy controls (N=25) with a mind-wandering task that assesses content and variability of stimulus-independent self-generated thoughts. Multi-level modeling revealed that while BPD patients and healthy controls mind-wander to a similar extent, BPD patients' thoughts are colored predominantly negatively. Most importantly, although their thoughts concerned the self and others as much as in controls, they fluctuated more strongly in the degree to which their thoughts concerned themselves and others and also gave more extreme ratings. Self- and other related thoughts that were more extreme were also more negative in valence. The increased variability supports current conceptualizations of BPD and may account fo...
Research Interests: Psychology, Clinical Psychology, Emotion, Experimental Psychology, Psychiatry, and 15 moreInterpersonal Communication, Personality, Mindfulness, Borderline Personality Disorder, Medicine, Thinking, Humans, Female, Male, Interpersonal Relations, Self Concept, Adult, Mindwandering, Psychology and Cognitive Sciences, and Medical and Health Sciences
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BackgroundThe substantial discrepancy between mentalising in experimental settings v. real-life social interactions hinders the understanding of the neural basis of real-life social cognition and of social impairments in psychiatric... more
BackgroundThe substantial discrepancy between mentalising in experimental settings v. real-life social interactions hinders the understanding of the neural basis of real-life social cognition and of social impairments in psychiatric disorders.AimsTo determine the neural mechanisms underlying naturalistic mentalising in individuals with and without autism spectrum disorder.MethodWe investigated mentalising with a new video-based functional magnetic resonance imaging task in 20 individuals with autism spectrum disorder and 22 matched healthy controls.ResultsNaturalistic mentalising implicated regions of the traditional mentalising network (medial prefrontal cortex, temporoparietal junction), and additionally the insula and amygdala. Moreover, amygdala activity predicted implicit mentalising performance on an independent behavioural task. Compared with controls, the autism spectrum disorder group did not show differences in neural activity within classical mentalising regions. They did...
Research Interests: Psychology, Autism, Theory of Mind, Magnetic Resonance Imaging, Social Perception, and 14 moreMedicine, Prefrontal Cortex, Humans, Cerebral Cortex, Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging, Female, Male, Young Adult, Amygdala, Autism Spectrum Disorder, Middle Aged, Adult, Psychology and Cognitive Sciences, and Medical and Health Sciences
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A lack of imitative behavior is frequently described as a core feature of Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD), and is consistent with claims of mirror neuron system dysfunction in these individuals. Previous research has questioned this... more
A lack of imitative behavior is frequently described as a core feature of Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD), and is consistent with claims of mirror neuron system dysfunction in these individuals. Previous research has questioned this characterization of ASD however, arguing that when tests of automatic imitation are used-which do not require higher-level cognitive processing-imitative behavior is intact or even enhanced in individuals with ASD. In Experiment 1, 60 adult individuals with ASD and a matched Control group completed an automatic imitation task in which they were required to perform an index or a middle finger lift while observing a hand making either the same, or the alternate, finger movement. Both groups demonstrated a significant imitation effect whereby actions were executed faster when preceded by observation of the same action, than when preceded by the alternate action. The magnitude of this "imitation effect" was statistically indistinguishable in the ASD...
Research Interests: Psychology, Cognitive Psychology, Autism, Mirror Neurons, Cognition, and 15 moreAutism Spectrum Disorders, Medicine, Space perception, Humans, Mirror neurons and Intersubjectivity, Female, Mirror Neuron System, Imitation, Male, Mirror Neuron, Autism Spectrum Disorder, Clinical Sciences, Adult, Neurosciences, and Psychomotor Performance
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Research Interests: Neuroscience, Game Theory, Intelligence, Medicine, Probability, and 15 moreExecutive Function, Memory, Computers, Humans, Internal Medicine, Female, Disease, Male, Clarithromycin, Adult, Intelligence tests, Clinical Significance, Autistic disorder, Mycobacterium avium complex, and Medical and Health Sciences
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Research Interests: Cognitive Psychology, Computer Science, Cognition, Magnetic Resonance Imaging, Independent Component Analysis, and 15 moreMedicine, Language Comprehension, Functional Connectivity, Humans, Cues, Female, Face processing, Male, Mental processes, Middle Aged, Adult, General Linear Model, Environment, Medial Prefrontal Cortex, and Medical and Health Sciences
Research Interests: Psychology, Autism, Magnetic Resonance Imaging, Medicine, Face perception, and 15 moreTemporal Lobe, Humans, Female, Male, Amygdala, Fusiform face area, Adult, Fusiform Gyrus, Cross Sectional Studies, Archives General Psychiatry, Case Control Studies, Neuropsychological Tests, Autistic disorder, Psychology and Cognitive Sciences, and Medical and Health Sciences
Research Interests: Psychology, Law, Medicine, Emotions, Antisocial Personality Disorder, and 15 moreEmpathy, Humans, Female, Narcissism, Male, Interpersonal Relations, Orbitofrontal cortex, Mentalizing, Adult, Analysis of Variance, Cognition disorders, Case Control Studies, Neuropsychological Tests, Psychology and Cognitive Sciences, and Medical and Health Sciences
Research Interests: Psychology, Cognitive Psychology, Education, Autism, Theory of Mind, and 15 moreMedicine, Mentalization, Humans, Child, Female, Male, Reaction Time, Young Adult, Mental processes, Autism Spectrum Disorder, Adult, Videotape Recording, Psychomotor Performance, photic stimulation, and Psychology and Cognitive Sciences
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Zusammenfassung. Bei Autismus-Spektrum-Störungen (ASD) wird von einem generellen Defizit der Empathie ausgegangen. Der Multidimensionale Empathietest (MET) von Dziobek und Mitarbeitern (2008) bietet die Möglichkeit einer fotobasierten,... more
Zusammenfassung. Bei Autismus-Spektrum-Störungen (ASD) wird von einem generellen Defizit der Empathie ausgegangen. Der Multidimensionale Empathietest (MET) von Dziobek und Mitarbeitern (2008) bietet die Möglichkeit einer fotobasierten, naturalisti-schen, simultanen und ...
Research Interests: Psychology and Autism
ABSTRACT
Empathy is a core prerequisite for human social behavior. Relatively, little is known about how empathy is influenced by social stress and its associated neuroendocrine alterations. The current study was designed to test the impact of... more
Empathy is a core prerequisite for human social behavior. Relatively, little is known about how empathy is influenced by social stress and its associated neuroendocrine alterations. The current study was designed to test the impact of acute stress on emotional and cognitive empathy. Healthy male participants were exposed to a psychosocial laboratory stressor (trier social stress test, (TSST)) or a well-matched control condition (Placebo-TSST). Afterwards they participated in an empathy test measuring emotional and cognitive empathy (multifaceted empathy test, (MET)). Stress exposure caused an increase in negative affect, a rise in salivary alpha amylase and a rise in cortisol. Participants exposed to stress reported more emotional empathy in response to pictures displaying both positive and negative emotional social scenes. Cognitive empathy (emotion recognition) in contrast did not differ between the stress and the control group. The current findings provide initial evidence for enhanced emotional empathy after acute psychosocial stress.
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Empathy is a core prerequisite for human social behavior. Relatively, little is known about how empathy is influenced by social stress and its associated neuroendocrine alterations. The current study was designed to test the impact of... more
Empathy is a core prerequisite for human social behavior. Relatively, little is known about how empathy is influenced by social stress and its associated neuroendocrine alterations. The current study was designed to test the impact of acute stress on emotional and cognitive empathy. Healthy male participants were exposed to a psychosocial laboratory stressor (trier social stress test, (TSST)) or a well-matched control condition (Placebo-TSST). Afterwards they participated in an empathy test measuring emotional and cognitive empathy (multifaceted empathy test, (MET)). Stress exposure caused an increase in negative affect, a rise in salivary alpha amylase and a rise in cortisol. Participants exposed to stress reported more emotional empathy in response to pictures displaying both positive and negative emotional social scenes. Cognitive empathy (emotion recognition) in contrast did not differ between the stress and the control group. The current findings provide initial evidence for enhanced emotional empathy after acute psychosocial stress.
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This study aimed at (a) comparing psychosocial functioning and life satisfaction in adults with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and nonclinical participants and (b) identifying areas of functioning that are most predictive for life... more
This study aimed at (a) comparing psychosocial functioning and life satisfaction in adults with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and nonclinical participants and (b) identifying areas of functioning that are most predictive for life satisfaction in individuals with ASD. A total of 43 adults with ASD without intellectual impairment (age: mean = 31, standard deviation = 10 years; 63% females) and healthy nonclinical individuals (N = 44) were surveyed. Individuals with ASD reported significant functional impairments and less life satisfaction compared with nonclinical individuals in many areas of life. Although impairments were prominent in domains involving interaction with other people such as understanding and communication, getting along with others, and participation in society, daily living skills (e.g., getting around, self-care, and household) were not different from nonclinical participants. Participating in society was identified as the only factor predicting life satisfaction ...
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Deep brain stimulation (DBS) is a promising approach in treatment-resistant depression (TRD). TRD is associated with problems in interpersonal relationships, which might be linked to impaired empathy. Here, we investigate the influence of... more
Deep brain stimulation (DBS) is a promising approach in treatment-resistant depression (TRD). TRD is associated with problems in interpersonal relationships, which might be linked to impaired empathy. Here, we investigate the influence of DBS in the subgenual anterior cingulate cortex (sgACC) on empathy in patients with TRD and explore the pattern of oscillatory sgACC activity during performance of the multifaceted empathy test. We recorded local field potential activity directly from sgACC via DBS electrodes in patients. Based on previous behavioral findings, we expected disrupted empathy networks. Patients showed increased empathic involvement ratings toward negative stimuli as compared with healthy subjects that were significantly reduced after 6 months of DBS. Stimulus-related oscillatory activity pattern revealed a broad desynchronization in the beta (14-35 Hz) band that was significantly larger during patients' reported emotional empathy for negative stimuli than when pati...
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To determine the safety and tolerability of 3 doses of intranasal oxytocin (Syntocinon; Novartis, Bern, Switzerland) administered to patients with frontotemporal dementia (FTD). We conducted a randomized, parallel-group, double-blind,... more
To determine the safety and tolerability of 3 doses of intranasal oxytocin (Syntocinon; Novartis, Bern, Switzerland) administered to patients with frontotemporal dementia (FTD). We conducted a randomized, parallel-group, double-blind, placebo-controlled study using a dose-escalation design to test 3 clinically feasible doses of intranasal oxytocin (24, 48, or 72 IU) administered twice daily for 1 week to 23 patients with behavioral variant FTD or semantic dementia (clinicaltrials.gov registration number NCT01386333). Primary outcome measures were safety and tolerability at each dose. Secondary measures explored efficacy across the combined oxytocin vs placebo groups and examined potential dose-related effects. All 3 doses of intranasal oxytocin were safe and well tolerated. A multicenter trial is warranted to determine the therapeutic efficacy of long-term intranasal oxytocin for behavioral symptoms in FTD. This study provides Class I evidence that for patients with FTD, intranasal oxytocin is not significantly associated with adverse events or significant changes in the overall neuropsychiatric inventory.
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Unlike the cognitive dimensions, alterations of the affective components of empathy in schizophrenia are less well understood. This study explored cognitive and affective dimensions of empathy in the context of the subjective experience... more
Unlike the cognitive dimensions, alterations of the affective components of empathy in schizophrenia are less well understood. This study explored cognitive and affective dimensions of empathy in the context of the subjective experience of aspects of emotion processing, including emotion regulation, emotional contagion, and interpersonal distress, in individuals with schizophrenia and healthy controls. In addition, the predictive value of these parameters on psychosocial function was investigated. Fifty-five patients with paranoid schizophrenia and 55 healthy controls were investigated using the Multifaceted Empathy Test and Interpersonal Reactivity Index, as well as the Subjective Experience of Emotions and Emotional Contagion Scales. Individuals with schizophrenia showed impairments of cognitive empathy, but maintained emotional empathy. They reported significantly more negative emotional contagion, overwhelming emotions, lack of emotions, and symbolization of emotions by imaginat...