Empathy can be detected in people whose brains are at rest:
UCLA researchers have found that it is possible to assess a person's ability to feel empathy by studying their brain activity while they are resting rather than while they are engaged in specific tasks.
Traditionally, empathy is assessed through the use of questionnaires and psychological assessments. The findings of this study offer an alternative to people who may have difficulty filling out questionnaires, such as people with severe mental illness or autism, said senior author Dr. Marco Iacoboni, professor of psychiatry and biobehavioral sciences at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA.
"Assessing empathy is often the hardest in the populations that need it most," Iacoboni said. "Empathy is a cornerstone of mental health and well-being. It promotes social and cooperative behavior through our concern for others. It also helps us to infer and predict the internal feelings, behavior and intentions of others."
Iacoboni has long studied empathy in humans. His previous studies have involved testing empathy in people presented with moral dilemmas or watching someone in pain.
For the current study, published in Frontiers in Integrative Neuroscience, researchers recruited 58 male and female participants ages 18 to 35.
Resting brain activity data were collected using functional magnetic resonance imaging, or fMRI, a noninvasive technique for measuring and mapping brain activity through small changes in blood flow. Participants were told to let their minds wander while keeping their eyes still, by looking at a fixation cross on a black screen.
Afterward, the participants completed questionnaires designed to measure empathy. They rated how statements such as "I often have tender, concerned feelings for people less fortunate than me" and "I sometimes try to understand my friends better by imagining how things look from their perspective" described them on a five-point scale from "not well" to "very well."
Researchers wanted to measure how accurately they could predict the participants' empathic disposition, characterized as the willingness and ability to understand another's situation, by analyzing the brain scans.
The predictions were made by looking into resting activity in specific brain networks that earlier studies demonstrated are important for empathy. Researchers used a form of artificial intelligence called machine learning, which can pick up subtle patterns in data that more traditional data analyses might not.
"We found that even when not engaged directly in a task that involves empathy, brain activity within these networks can reveal people's empathic disposition," Iacoboni said. "The beauty of the study is that the MRIs helped us predict the results of each participant's questionnaire."
The findings could help health care professionals better assess empathy in people with autism or schizophrenia, who may have difficulties filling out questionnaires or expressing emotion.
Leonardo Christov-Moore, Nicco Reggente, Pamela K. Douglas, Jamie D. Feusner, Marco Iacoboni. Predicting Empathy From Resting State Brain Connectivity: A Multivariate Approach. Frontiers in Integrative Neuroscience, 2020; 14 DOI: 10.3389/fnint.2020.00003
(Score: 3, Funny) by MostCynical on Wednesday February 26 2020, @09:37AM (9 children)
is it just the Voight-Kampff test? [allthetests.com]'
what happens if you fail?
"I guess once you start doubting, there's no end to it." -Batou, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Wednesday February 26 2020, @01:17PM (8 children)
They force you to watch the sequel.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Wednesday February 26 2020, @01:49PM (7 children)
The way to watch the sequel was with a full sound system. Like with the first film the soundscape was a big part of the effect.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 26 2020, @02:37PM (6 children)
Seemed like TMB was referring to the aversion therapy of Alex in "A Clockwork Orange", but I didn't think there was a sequel for that Kubrick flick...
Kneejerk response == google,
sequel to "a clockwork orange"
which gave me an almost completely orthogonal first hit,
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breakfast_at_Tiffany%27s_(novella) [wikipedia.org]
This looks like a good Truman Capote story, but it was written before Anthony Burgess wrote Clockwork and over a decade before the movie. And searching inside the wiki entry there are no instances of "clockwork" or "orange".
*** So, after that little detour, just what are you referring to?
(Score: 3, Informative) by Phoenix666 on Wednesday February 26 2020, @03:11PM (5 children)
Voight-Kampff was a Bladerunner reference, so I took Buzzard's response to mean the sequel to that film. "A Clockwork Orange" focused on aversion therapy more than forcing Alex to watch a sequel to a movie.
BTW, for those who enjoyed "A Clockwork Orange" the German punk band Die Toten Hosen's Ein Kleines Bisschen Horrorschau concept album is a marvelous musical interpretation of the story. Hier Kommt Alex [youtube.com] is the best known song, but Keine Ahnung [youtube.com] and Zahltag [youtube.com] are excellent tunes also. The whole album is worth checking out.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Wednesday February 26 2020, @08:50PM (4 children)
Indeed. Bladerunner 2049 was as big a slap in the face as Highlander 2.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 26 2020, @11:58PM (3 children)
Shows what taste you have. 2049 was no where close to the first, as with just about all such sequels, but it was still quite a good movie. People complained about the lack of color, but that seemed quite intentional to portray the decline of society in that dystopian post-war future. I'm glad they didn't try and simply recreate the 1st movie.
I can't think of any PC tropes that you chuds complain about these days, makes me wonder what your big gripes were.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Thursday February 27 2020, @11:26AM (2 children)
You really don't get it, do you? Are you honestly so young that you haven't lived in a time before everything was a sequel or a reboot? Sequels and reboots aren't art, they're cash grabs.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 28 2020, @01:18AM (1 child)
Reboots are cash grabs, sequels not necessarily.
2049 had new plot lines and twists, pretty minimal nostalgia aspects, and was a good movie. You're just bitter and I guess you don't want to share why.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday March 02 2020, @04:38AM
Because the story was poor and also poorly told. It was written for idiots who had a hard time following the original movie. I don't watch something with Bladerunner in the title because I want my hand held and everything that a moron in a hurry might miss being explained to me. Those sort of movies have their place but it sure as shit isn't in a Bladerunner sequel.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Phoenix666 on Wednesday February 26 2020, @01:56PM (16 children)
Sociopathy is deleterious, but pure empathy is maladaptive, too. If you spend all your time laboring to avoid hurting other people's feelings, you leave little time to dare and innovate. Most of what our civilization is built on required a degree of bloody-mindedness to achieve.
Would we ever have harnessed horses to the plow if we were worried about hurting and oppressing the poor animals? Would we ever have built the Hoover Dam if we were too concerned workers might die in the attempt? Would we preen ourselves about our iPhones if we were truly worried about the poor Chinese workers who have been hurling themselves off the roof of Foxconn to avoid having to build the things anymore?
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 4, Touché) by ikanreed on Wednesday February 26 2020, @02:24PM (12 children)
See, I know I don't have an excess of empathy because I'm happy to tell you that your mental acuity is comparable to that of a particularly low-achievement chimpanzee, with this dumb as fuck take.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 26 2020, @02:42PM (4 children)
Ok, now tell me how you really feel.
No, really, please explain how we get from "hunter-gatherers" to "ordering from eBay" with a fictional version of humanity that is 100% empathetic.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by ikanreed on Wednesday February 26 2020, @02:59PM (2 children)
No, humanity has huge chapters of sadistic cruelty.
The problem is none of that cruelty added anything useful to the world.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 27 2020, @12:06AM (1 child)
Well luck that you're in the future! Now we get iPhones and shitty health coverage. I guess it is balanced back again by the environmental destruction.
You should talk to Buzzweirdo the Infinitely Wrong he seems to think that a human sitting on a couch is the end of the world and they should be assembling hinges, screws, and balls of all sorts. From everything I've experienced humans eventually get bored and want to do something more meaningful, UBI and social programs would help humans do that instead of adding to the garbage heap made of cheap shit no one wants to fix or recycle.
We are incentivizing the wrong things, but the Bloombergs and Trumps of the world really like it that way. Hell I probably would too if I was stealing from everyone else, at least ye olde kings had the Divine Mandate excuse.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Thursday February 27 2020, @11:35AM
Nah, I think you should do whatever you feel like doing. Just don't bitch to me that nobody wants their effort to go to feed your worthless ass.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by https on Wednesday February 26 2020, @05:51PM
First you'll have to remember that you're assuming this "ordering from ebay" is an improvement in society. Your empathy meter may require activation and calibration.
It's easy to mistake a change in a society for an advancement if it is accompanied by glowing grub diggers but you're still eating grubs from a tree stump.
Offended and laughing about it.
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Wednesday February 26 2020, @02:56PM (6 children)
My mental acuity certainly dropped after your rejoinder, as did everyone else's.
If you're going to be a dick, cut deeper with your reasoning and insight, not with spastic jabs.
Empathy has a place. There is even a vital role to be played in society by individuals who are very empathetic. But there is also a role to be played by those who have low empathy. If you've never been a boss who had to fire somebody who wasn't doing his job in order to save the team and the company, then you won't understand that.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2) by ikanreed on Wednesday February 26 2020, @03:02PM (5 children)
Let's stick to remotely possible statements, please.
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Wednesday February 26 2020, @03:16PM (4 children)
At this point, we could make my previous comment recursive, because you persist.
But this latest comment of yours does reveal you to be a fantasist, because you appear to believe that glib, half-cocked quips negates succinct, parsimonious points made by others you disagree with.
Here it is again: sociopathy is bad. Pure empathy is also bad. A society needs a spectrum of empathy to thrive.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2) by ikanreed on Wednesday February 26 2020, @03:20PM (2 children)
Both sides! I is smart because I not dislike only bad thing! Me dislike good thing too! AM SMART
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Thursday February 27 2020, @12:14AM (1 child)
At last you are composing at a level commensurate with your username, I Kan Reed.
Sigh. This is the level too many have sunk to in their delusions.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 27 2020, @12:18AM
OK BOOMER!
All caps cause I know you people suffer from decreased visual acuity, and if you're using any accessibility features hopefully it turned up the volume a bit for those Woodstock damaged ears.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 27 2020, @12:15AM
Your original point was pretty lame as the start of a conversation and promotes the horrors of humanity as some kind of necessary evil.
Such gems as "If you spend all your time laboring to avoid hurting other people's feelings, you leave little time to dare and innovate" as if empathy has ever stopped someone from innovating? The only example I can think of would be weapons or products intended to hurt innocent people. Basically you start with a false premise and shoe-horn in something akin to "greedy capitalism is good or we'd never innovate."
Plow? Horses were domesticated, as long as the farmer isn't mistreating the horse then no reason for that to conflict with having empathy.
Hoovr Dam? I think slowing down the construction a tad in favor of safer working conditions would have been totally fine.
iPhones? Choose the worst possible example why don't you!
Basically none of the suffering was necessary, just expedient for greedy assholes. That being said, yes you could concoct some crazy scenarios where too much empathy is a problem, but in all of human history it usually goes the other way. I believe that is why you are mocked with simplistic insults, your entire premise is lame to the point of stupid.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 26 2020, @04:19PM
I wonder how well the usual "rate agreement with statement on a spectrum" tests are working to detect lack of empathy.
They are usually very easy to see through. And while anonymity of the results might ease the mind of less empathic personalities, I don't see why one would agree to take the test at all if they were that vested in themselves. After all there's always the off chance that a bleeding heart shrink decides the results are way too extreme and throws discretion to the wind.
Do we trust empathically deprived individuals to have an attention-seeking streak and make their condition known? People will hide their problems with sexuality or depression and those are things you can get help for, unlike empathy where the "help" you would be getting is mostly getting told your base way of thinking is wrong and an affront to society.
(Score: 4, Informative) by maxwell demon on Wednesday February 26 2020, @06:13PM (1 child)
No, it isn't. However you seem to be confused on what empathy is:
Empathy is the ability to recognize/sense other people's feelings. What you then do with that is a completely different issue.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Thursday February 27 2020, @12:23AM
I am not confused at all. Simply put, I have posited that there is a role to play in society for those who have relatively low levels of empathy, as well as those who have a higher level of empathy. A person can also posit much the same about people who excel in art versus those who excel in science.
But that would require the ability to process variety. As others have amply demonstrated, that is in short supply. Simpletons demand simplicity, and cannot tolerate any degree of complexity outside their specific area of focus.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 26 2020, @07:20PM
I think it's important to distinguish the difference between sympathy and empathy. The following example illustrates the distinction I think of when using the term even though it's not a dictionary example.
It's possible to have empathy without having sympathy. For instance I may have not have sympathy for a smoker that develops emphysema but I may still have empathy for that same person.