First of all, let’s all hope that Sci can stay awake long enough to get this post out, it’s been a very long few weeks and Sci is very, very tired. She has, admittedly, been very, very tired for a very, very long time. But she is also very, very devoted to YOU. Yes, YOU. And the blog. And TEH SCIENZE!!!
(Sci was looking for a god or goddess of science to worship here, but couldn’t find anything. She used this Minoan Snake Goddess from Crete instead. Can you tell Sci’s REALLY tired?)
Anyway, in my devotion to Science, and particularly neuroscience, one of the things that has always particularly interested Sci is the notion of empathy. Empathy and altruism. Altruism obviously has some pretty big societal advantages, useful for a social species such as the human, and empathy, the ability to feel what someone else is feeling, is a pretty important part of that.
But how do you know what someone else is experiencing? You see it. This effect has been known especially in people with something called synesthesia, where one type of sensation is perceived as another type of sensation. For example, some synethetes can “taste” or “see” sound. In this case, it’s been found that some synesthetes can “feel” touch which they are seeing occur on other people. This means that if they see YOU get touched on the hand, they’ll feel their hand get touched as well. It occurs to Sci that, while this could be a very cool thing to have sometimes (like sex!), it would make watching slasher fics a REALLY horrible experience. This also makes her wonder if some synesthetes experience atonal music like bad tasting medicine or something.
Anyway, the scientists in this study used a touch experience to determine whether this synesthete experience, of seeing someone being touched, could make a normal person “feel” something. This could be a big deal in explaining why we empathize with other people’s experiences. Not only that, the authors wanted to look at whether the identification of yourself and of another person had an effect on the feelings you felt as that person was being touched. Ideas of what we look like or who we identify with can change how we “map” ourselves in our brain, and possibly change how we experience what others are feeling. Having more or less intense feelings for someone who looks or acts more or less like you could help explain how we establish things like “in group” and “out group” concepts, which are essential in forming the kind of society we have now.
Andrea Serino, Giulia Giovagnoli, Elisabetta Làdavas “I Feel what You Feel if You Are Similar to Me” PLoS ONE, 2009.
Filed under: Behavioral Neuro | 13 Comments »
