Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Individuals with Autism Share Others’ Emotions: Evidence from the Continuous Affective Rating and Empathic Responses (CARER) Task

Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders volume 51, pages 391–404 (2021)Cite this article

Abstract

A new task (‘CARER’) was used to test claims of reduced empathy in autistic adults. CARER measures emotion identification (ability to identify another’s affective state), affective empathy (degree to which another’s affective state causes a matching state in the Empathiser) and affect sharing (degree to which the Empathiser’s state matches the state they attribute to another). After controlling for alexithymia, autistic individuals showed intact affect sharing, emotion identification and affective empathy. Results suggested reduced retrospective socio-emotional processing, likely due to a failure to infer neurotypical mental states. Thus, autism may be associated with difficulties inferring another’s affective state retrospectively, but not with sharing that state. Therefore, when appropriate measures are used, autistic individuals do not show a lack of empathy.

This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution.

Access options

Buy single article

Instant access to the full article PDF.

USD 39.95

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Fig. 1
Fig. 2
Fig. 3

Notes

  1. Negative scores would indicate ‘excessive’ Affective Empathy, showing that the Empathiser’s reaction to the Target’s affective state is stronger than the Target’s own reaction.

  2. When checking for homogeneity of variance using Levene’s test, the variable affective emotion identification was significant at T2. Therefore, findings from the ANCOVA relating to the crucial Group x Story type interaction were re-assessed using the non-parametric Kruskal–Wallis test in JASP (JASP Team, 2019). We calculated a difference score between affective and neutral trials to obtain a single difference score and compared this score between the groups. The results of this analysis showed the same pattern of significance as the ANCOVA results (X2(1) = .2, p = .655).

  3. The Levene’s test for the variable emotion identification for affective stories was significant, therefore, the Group x Story type interaction found in the ANCOVA was further assessed with a non-parametric Kruskal–Wallis test. We calculated a difference scores between affective and neutral stories to obtain a single difference score and compared this score between the groups. This analysis supported the ANCOVA results, (X2(1) = 6.88, p = .009).

References

  • Adler, N., Dvash, J., & Shamay-Tsoory, S. G. (2015). Empathic embarrassment accuracy in autism spectrum disorder. Autism Research, 8(3), 241–249.

    PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Andreychik, M. R. (2019). I like that you feel my pain, but I love that you feel my joy: Empathy for a partner’s negative versus positive emotions independently affect relationship quality. Journal of Social and Personal Relationships, 36(3), 834–854.

    Google Scholar 

  • Avenanti, A., Bueti, D., Galati, G., & Aglioti, S. M. (2005). Transcranial magnetic stimulation highlights the sensorimotor side of empathy for pain. Nature Neuroscience, 8(7), 955.

    PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Bagby, R. M., Taylor, G. J., & Parker, J. D. (1994). The twenty-item Toronto Alexithymia Scale—II. Convergent, discriminant, and concurrent validity. Journal of Psychosomatic Research, 38(1), 33–40.

    PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Baron-Cohen, S. (2000). Theory of mind and autism: A fifteen year review. Understanding Other Minds: Perspectives from Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience, 2, 3–20.

    Google Scholar 

  • Baron-Cohen, S., Leslie, A., & Frith, U. (1985). Does the autistic child have a ‘theory of mind’? Cognition, 21, 37–46.

    PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Baron-Cohen, S., Richler, J., Bisarya, D., Gurunathan, N., & Wheelwright, S. (2003). The systemizing quotient: an investigation of adults with Asperger syndrome or high–functioning autism, and normal sex differences. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 358(1430), 361–374.

    Google Scholar 

  • Baron-Cohen, S., & Wheelwright, S. (2004). The empathy quotient: An investigation of adults with Asperger syndrome or high functioning autism, and normal sex differences. Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, 34(2), 163–175.

    PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Baron-Cohen, S., Wheelwright, S., Skinner, R., Martin, J., & Clubley, E. (2001). The autism-spectrum quotient (AQ): Evidence from asperger syndrome/high-functioning autism, malesand females, scientists and mathematicians. Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, 31(1), 5–17.

    Google Scholar 

  • Barnes, J. L., Lombardo, M. V., Wheelwright, S., & Baron-Cohen, S. (2009). Moral dilemmas film task: A study of spontaneous narratives by individuals with autism spectrum conditions. Autism Research, 2(3), 148–156.

    PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Batson, C. D. (2009). These things called empathy: Eight related but distinct phenomena.

  • Beck, A. T., Steer, R. A., & Brown, G. K. (1996). Manual for the beck depression inventory-II (Vol. 1, p. 82). San Antonio, TX: Psychological Corporation.

    Google Scholar 

  • Beversdorf, D. Q., Anderson, J. M., Manning, S. E., Anderson, S. L., Nordgren, R. E., Felopulos, G. J., et al. (1998). The effect of semantic and emotional context on written recall for verbal language in high functioning adults with autism spectrum disorder. Journal of Neurology, Neurosurgery and Psychiatry, 65, 685–692. https://doi.org/10.1136/jnnp.65.5.685.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Bird, G., & Cook, R. (2013). Mixed emotions: the contribution of alexithymia to the emotional symptoms of autism. Translational Psychiatry, 3(7), e285.

    PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  • Bird, G., Press, C., & Richardson, D. C. (2011). The role of alexithymia in reduced eye-fixation in autism spectrum conditions. Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, 41(11), 1556–1564.

    PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Bird, G., Silani, G., Brindley, R., White, S., Frith, U., & Singer, T. (2010). Empathic brain responses in insula are modulated by levels of alexithymia but not autism. Brain, 133(5), 1515–1525.

    PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  • Bird, G., & Viding, E. (2014). The self to other model of empathy: Providing a new framework for understanding empathy impairments in psychopathy, autism, and alexithymia. Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews, 47, 520–532.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bothe, E., Palermo, R., Rhodes, G., Burton, N., & Jeffery, L. (2019). Expression recognition difficulty is associated with social but not attention-to-detail autistic traits and reflects both alexithymia and perceptual difficulty. Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, 49, 4559–4571.

    PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Brewer, R., Biotti, F., Catmur, C., Press, C., Happé, F., Cook, R., et al. (2016). Can neurotypical individuals read autistic facial expressions? Atypical production of emotional facial expressions in autism spectrum disorders. Autism Research, 9(2), 262–271.

    PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Capps, L., Losh, M., & Thurber, C. (2000). “The frog ate the bug and made his mouth sad”: Narrative competence in children with autism. Journal of Abnormal Child Psychology, 28(2), 193–204.

    PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Coll, M. P., Viding, E., Rütgen, M., Silani, G., Lamm, C., Catmur, C., et al. (2017). Are we really measuring empathy? Proposal for a new measurement framework. Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews, 83, 132–139.

    Google Scholar 

  • Cook, R., Brewer, R., Shah, P., & Bird, G. (2013). Alexithymia, not autism, predicts poor recognition of emotional facial expressions. Psychological Science, 24(5), 723–732.

    PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Corden, B., Chilvers, R., & Skuse, D. (2008). Emotional modulation of perception in Asperger’s syndrome. Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, 38, 1072–1080. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10803-007-0485-y.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Davis, M. H. (1980). A multidimensional approach to individual differences in empathy. JSAS Catalogue of Selected Documents in Psychology, 10, 85.

    Google Scholar 

  • De Vignemont, F., & Singer, T. (2006). The empathic brain: How, when and why? Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 10(10), 435–441.

    PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Decety, J., & Moriguchi, Y. (2007). The empathic brain and its dysfunction in psychiatric populations: Implications for intervention across different clinical conditions. BioPsychoSocial Medicine, 1(1), 22.

    PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  • Dziobek, I., Rogers, K., Fleck, S., Bahnemann, M., Heekeren, H. R., Wolf, O. T., et al. (2008). Dissociation of cognitive and emotional empathy in adults with Asperger syndrome using the Multifaceted Empathy Test (MET). Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, 38(3), 464–473.

    PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • English, M. C., Maybery, M. T., & Visser, T. A. (2017). Threatening faces fail to guide attention for adults with autistic-like traits. Autism Research, 10(2), 311–320.

    PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • English, M. C., Maybery, M. T., & Visser, T. A. (2019). Autistic-traits, not anxiety, modulate implicit emotional guidance of attention in neurotypical adults. Scientific Reports, 9(1), 1–10.

    Google Scholar 

  • Fan, Y. T., Chen, C., Chen, S. C., Decety, J., & Cheng, Y. (2014). Empathic arousal and social understanding in individuals with autism: Evidence from fMRI and ERP measurements. Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience, 9(8), 1203–1213.

    PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Faso, D. J., Sasson, N. J., & Pinkham, A. E. (2015). Evaluating posed and evoked facial expressions of emotion from adults with autism spectrum disorder. Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, 45, 75–89.

    PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Frith, U. (1994). Autism and theory of mind in everyday life. Social development, 3(2), 108–124.

    Google Scholar 

  • Frith, U. (2012). Why we need cognitive explanations of autism. The Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 65(11), 2073–2092.

    PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Gaigg, S. B., & Bowler, D. M. (2008). Free recall and forgetting of emotionally arousing words in autism spectrum disorder. Neuropsychologia, 46, 2336–2343. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2008.03.008.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Gaigg, S. B., & Bowler, D. M. (2009a). Brief report: attenuated emotional suppression of the attentional blink in autism spectrum disorder: Another non-social abnormality? Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, 39, 1211–1217. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10803-009-0719-2.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Gaigg, S. B., & Bowler, D. M. (2009b). Illusory memories of emotionally charged words in autism spectrum disorder: Further evidence for atypical emotion processing outside the social domain. Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, 39, 1031–1038. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10803-009-0710-y.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Hadjikhani, N., Zürcher, N. R., Rogier, O., Hippolyte, L., Lemonnier, E., Ruest, T., et al. (2014). Emotional contagion for pain is intact in autism spectrum disorders. Translational Psychiatry, 4(1), e343.

    PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  • Harms, M. B., Martin, A., & Wallace, G. L. (2010). Facial emotion recognition in autism spectrum disorders: A review of behavioral and neuroimaging studies. Neuropsychology Review, 20(3), 290–322.

    PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Heaton, P., Reichenbacher, L., Sauter, D., Allen, R., Scott, S., & Hill, E. (2012). Measuring the effects of alexithymia on perception of emotional vocalizations in autistic spectrum disorder and typical development. Psychological Medicine, 42(11), 2453–2459.

    PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Hill, E., Berthoz, S., & Frith, U. (2004). Brief report: Cognitive processing of own emotions in individuals with autistic spectrum disorder and in their relatives. Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, 34(2), 229–235.

    Google Scholar 

  • Ickes, W., Stinson, L., Bissonnette, V., & Garcia, S. (1990). Naturalistic social cognition: Empathic accuracy in mixed-sex dyads. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 59, 730–742.

    Google Scholar 

  • JASP Team. (2019). JASP (Version 0.11.1) [Computer software].

  • Jeffreys, H. (1961). Theory of probability (3rd ed.). Oxford: Oxford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Lartseva, A., Dijkstra, T., & Buitelaar, J. K. (2015). Emotional language processing in autism spectrum disorders: A systematic review. Frontiers in Human Neuroscience, 8, 991.

    PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  • Lawrence, E., Shaw, P., Baker, D., Baron-Cohen, S., & David, A. (2004). Measuring empathy: Reliability and validity of the empathy quotient. Psychological Medicine, 34(5), 911–920. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0033291703001624.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Minio-Paluello, I., Baron-Cohen, S., Avenanti, A., Walsh, V., & Aglioti, S. M. (2009). Absence of embodied empathy during pain observation in Asperger syndrome. Biological psychiatry, 65(1), 55–62.

    PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Morelli, S. A., Lieberman, M. D., & Zaki, J. (2015). The emerging study of positive empathy. Social and Personality Psychology Compass, 9(2), 57–68.

    Google Scholar 

  • Morrison, A. S., Mateen, M. A., Brozovich, F. A., Zaki, J., Goldin, P. R., Heimberg, R. G., et al. (2016). Empathy for positive and negative emotions in social anxiety disorder. Behaviour Research and Therapy, 87, 232–242.

    PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  • Oakley, B. F., Brewer, R., Bird, G., & Catmur, C. (2016). Theory of mind is not theory of emotion: A cautionary note on the Reading the Mind in the Eyes Test. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 125(6), 818.

    PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  • Raftery, A. E. (1995). Bayesian model selection in social research. Sociological Methodology, 25, 111–163.

    Google Scholar 

  • Rueda, P., Fernández-Berrocal, P., & Baron-Cohen, S. (2015). Dissociation between cognitive and affective empathy in youth with Asperger syndrome. European Journal of Developmental Psychology, 12(1), 85–98.

    Google Scholar 

  • Salminen, J. K., Saarijärvi, S., Äärelä, E., Toikka, T., & Kauhanen, J. (1999). Prevalence of alexithymia and its association with sociodemographic variables in the general population of Finland. Journal of Psychosomatic Research, 1, 75–82. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0022-3999(98)00053-1.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Schilbach, L. (2014). On the relationship of online and offline social cognition. Frontiers in Human Neuroscience, 8, 278.

    PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  • Schilbach, L., Timmermans, B., Reddy, V., Costall, A., Bente, G., Schlicht, T., et al. (2013). Toward a second-person neuroscience 1. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 36(4), 393–414.

    Google Scholar 

  • Shamay-Tsoory, S. G., Tomer, R., Yaniv, S., & Aharon-Peretz, J. (2002). Empathy deficits in Asperger syndrome: A cognitive profile. Neurocase, 8(2), 245–252.

    PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Sifneos, P. E. (1973). The prevalence of ‘alexithymic’ characteristics in psychosomatic patients. Psychotherapy and Psychosomatics, 22(2-6), 255–262.

    PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Silani, G., Bird, G., Brindley, R., Singer, T., Frith, C., & Frith, U. (2008). Levels of emotional awareness and autism: An fMRI study. Social Neuroscience, 3(2), 97–112.

    Google Scholar 

  • Smith, A. (2009). The empathy imbalance hypothesis of autism: a theoretical approach to cognitive and emotional empathy in autistic development. The Psychological Record, 59(3), 489–510.

    Google Scholar 

  • Trevisan, D. A., Bowering, M., & Birmingham, E. (2016). Alexithymia, but not autism spectrum disorder, may be related to the production of emotional facial expressions. Molecular Autism, 7(1), 46.

    PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  • Volker, M. A., Lopata, C., Smith, D. A., & Thomeer, M. L. (2009). Facial encoding of children with high-function autism spectrum disorders. Focus on Autism and Other Developmental Disabilities, 24(4), 195–204.

    Google Scholar 

  • Wechsler, D. (2009). Wechsler memory scale-fourth edition (WMS–IV) technical and interpretive manual. San Antonio, TX: Pearson.

    Google Scholar 

  • Zaki, J., Bolger, N., & Ochsner, K. (2008). It takes two: The interpersonal nature of empathic accuracy. Psychological Science, 19(4), 399–440.

    PubMed  Google Scholar 

Download references

Acknowledgments

The authors wish to thank Dr Jeffrey M Girard for programming the CARER empathy task and Ella Belfield and Laura Didymus for assistance during early data collection. This work was supported by an Economics and Social Research Council (ESRC) Grant awarded to IS [ES/N00325X/1]. MJB is also supported by an ESRC Grant [ES/R007527/1]. GB is supported by the Baily Thomas Charitable Trust.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Psychology, University of Cambridge, Downing Street, Cambridge, CB2 3EB, UK

    Idalmis Santiesteban & Nicola Clayton

  2. University College London Great Ormond Street Institute of Child Health, 30 Guilford Street, London, WC1N 1EH, UK

    Clare Gibbard

  3. University of Trier, Universitätsring 15, 54296, Trier, Germany

    Hanna Drucks

  4. Department of Psychology, Goldsmiths, University of London, New Cross, London, SE14 6NW, UK

    Michael J. Banissy

  5. Department of Experimental Psychology, University of Oxford, Oxford, OX2 6GG, UK

    Geoffrey Bird

  6. Social, Genetic & Developmental Psychiatry Centre, Institute of Psychiatry Psychology and Neuroscience, Kings College London, DeCrespigny Park, London, SE5 8AF, UK

    Geoffrey Bird

Authors
  1. Idalmis Santiesteban
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Clare Gibbard
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  3. Hanna Drucks
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  4. Nicola Clayton
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  5. Michael J. Banissy
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  6. Geoffrey Bird
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Contributions

IS, MJB, GB and NSC contributed to the study conception and design. Material preparation, data collection and analysis were performed by IS, CG and HD. The first draft of the manuscript was written by IS. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Idalmis Santiesteban.

Ethics declarations

Conflict of interest

The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

Additional information

Publisher's Note

Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

Electronic supplementary material

Below is the link to the electronic supplementary material.

Supplementary file1 (DOCX 21693 kb)

Rights and permissions

Reprints and Permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Santiesteban, I., Gibbard, C., Drucks, H. et al. Individuals with Autism Share Others’ Emotions: Evidence from the Continuous Affective Rating and Empathic Responses (CARER) Task. J Autism Dev Disord 51, 391–404 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10803-020-04535-y

Download citation

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10803-020-04535-y

Keywords

search

Navigation