The Cognitive Neuroscience of Sharing and Understanding Others’ Emotions
The Cognitive Neuroscience of Sharing and Understanding Others’ Emotions
This chapter explores how cognitive neuroscience research on empathy has evolved over the years, and discusses the neuroscience of social cognition approaches, including empirical research and theorizing. The empirical research focuses on the mechanisms through which one person shares the experiences of other people, while the theorizing focuses on using the human ability to attribute unique mental states to oneself and others. The chapter discusses the use of social cues in neural system research to understand how people develop impressions about other people, and explores the importance of the brain in sharing and understanding the emotions of other people. The importance of improving the studies on illnesses such as autism spectrum disorders is also discussed.
Keywords: cognitive neuroscience, empirical research, theorizing, social cues, empathy, autism spectrum disorders
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