Development of the Adolescent Measure of Empathy and Sympathy (AMES)

The aim of the present study was to develop and validate a new instrument to measure empathy and sympathy in adolescents that differentiates between empathy and sympathy, and balances its emphasis on affective and cognitive empathy. The psychometric properties of the Adolescent Measure of Empathy and Sympathy (AMES) were established in two studies. In the first study, among 499 adolescents (10–15 years old), the structure of the AMES was investigated and the number of items was reduced. In the second study, among 450 adolescents, test-retest reliability and construct validity of the AMES was evaluated. Results indicate that the AMES met the standards of reliability and validity. By specifically distinguishing between affective empathy and sympathy, the AMES provides a distinct advantage over existing measurement tools and is useful in elucidating the relationship between empathy and behavior in adolescents.     

Subjectively different emotional schematic faces not automatically discriminated from the brain’s bioelectrical responses

The present study investigates how the brain automatically discriminates emotional schematic faces, as indicated by the mismatch responses, and how reliable these brain responses are. Thirty-three healthy volunteers participated in the vMMN EEG experiment with four experimental sets differing from each other by the type of standard (object with scrambled face features) and the type of deviants (Angry, Happy and Neutral schematic faces) presented. Conscious subjective evaluations of valence, arousal and attention catching of the same stimuli showed clear differentiation of emotional expressions. Deviant faces elicited rather similar vMMN at frontal and occipital sites. Bayesian analyses suggest that vMMN does not differ between angry and happy faces. Neutral faces, however, did not yield statistically significant vMMN at occipital leads. Pearson’s correlation and intra-class correlation analyses showed that the brain’s reactions to the stimuli were highly stable within individuals across the experimental sets, whereas the mismatch responses were much more variable.