Negative interpretation bias towards ambiguous facial expressions in individuals with high empathy

Abstract

Previous studies have found that individuals with high empathy tend to describe ambiguous faces as negative expressions that convey helplessness. However, the cognitive mechanism behind this processing pattern (i.e. whether it is due to interpretation bias or perceptual sensitivity) and whether the pattern is specific to emotions implying helplessness or applicable to all negative emotions are still unclear. The present study aimed to fill these gaps. Fifty-four undergraduates with high empathy and fifty-four with low empathy completed an emotion recognition paradigm. In this paradigm, they were presented with sad–happy and angry–happy expression continua and then were asked to indicate which emotion the presented facial images most resembled. For the sad–happy continuum, the high-empathy group showed higher shift points compared to the low-empathy group, but with comparable slopes. No significant differences were found when using the angry–happy continuum. The findings indicate that the negative facial recognition of high empathizers is attributed to interpretation bias rather than perceptual sensitivity, and this pattern is specific to faces conveying helplessness. This may help to understand the distress in high empathizers and lay the groundwork for alleviating mental and interpersonal problems of high-empathy individuals through interpretation bias intervention.