Motivated empathy: The mechanics of the empathic gaze
Abstract
Successful human social interactions frequently rely on appropriate interpersonal empathy and eye contact. Here, we report a previously unseen relationship between trait empathy and eye-gaze patterns to affective facial features in video-based stimuli. Fifty-nine healthy adult participants had their eyes tracked while watching a three-minute long "sad" and "emotionally neutral" video. The video stimuli portrayed the head and shoulders of the same actor recounting a fictional personal event. Analyses revealed that the greater participants' trait emotional empathy, the more they fixated on the eye-region of the actor, regardless of the emotional valence of the video stimuli. Our findings provide the first empirical evidence of a relationship between empathic capacity and eye-gaze pattern to the most affective facial region (eyes).
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Preliminary analysis of the eye-tracking paradigm replicated the basic effects seen in Cowan et al. (2014).
“Preliminary analysis of the eye-tracking paradigm replicated the basic effects seen in Cowan et al. (2014)”
From The effects of reading narrative fiction on social and moral cognition (2021) · cites this paper as Cowan et al. (2014)
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References 26 · Cited by 68
- Authors
- Cowan, D. G., Vanman, E. J., & Nielsen, M.
- Affiliations
- The University of Queensland (AU)
- Corresponding author
- Cowan, David G.
- Venue
- Cognition and Emotion
- Publisher
- Informa UK Limited
- Published
- 2014-02-25
- Volume
- 28
- Issue
- 8
- Pages
- 1522-1530
- ISSN
- 0269-9931 (ISSN-L)
- 1464-0600
- OpenAlex
- W2057822247
- Cited by
- 68
- References
- 26
- Citations by year
- 2026: 5 · 2025: 8 · 2024: 6 · 2023: 8 · 2022: 8 · 2021: 12 · 2020: 6 · 2019: 6 · 2018: 3 · 2017: 2 · 2016: 1 · 2015: 2 · 2014: 1
- FWCI
- 2.96
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- Cognition & Emotion (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Social Psychology › Action Observation and Synchronization
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Face Recognition and Perception
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Social Psychology › Emotions and Moral Behavior
- Keywords
- trait empathy, affective empathy, gaze, eye tracking, interpersonal empathy, social interaction, emotional valence, facial expressions
- MeSH terms
- Adolescent, Adult, Emotions, Empathy, Eye Movements, Facial Expression, Female, Humans, Interpersonal Relations, Male, Motivation, Young Adult
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