Understanding how others feel : evaluating the relationship between empathy and various aspects of emotion recognition following severe traumatic brain injury

Objective: The aim of this study was to use various measures of emotion recognition, such as sensitivity to emotional intensity, accuracy-based emotion labeling, and the ability to differentiate among emotional displays, to examine whether these abilities are associated with emotional and cognitive empathy. We also sought to determine whether these relationships differ between individuals with traumatic brain injury (TBI) and healthy adults. Method: TBI participants (n 28) and healthy adults (n 29) matched for age, biological sex, and education, were tested on an emotion intensity rating and recognition task. Self-reported emotional and cognitive empathy questionnaires, together with a neuropsychological battery, were also completed. Results: Participants with TBI reported reduced emotional and cognitive empathy. TBI participants also had reduced overall accuracy in recognizing emotion, specifically for happy and sad emotions, although they had no difficulty identifying the intensity or differentiating among emotional displays. Intensity labeling and sensitivity to differentiate among emotions positively correlated with emotional empathy for healthy adults but not for TBI participants. No facet of emotion recognition correlated with cognitive empathy for healthy adults or TBI participants. Conclusions: The ability to identify the intensity and differentiate among emotions is associated with emotional empathy. Although individuals with severe TBI may be able to differentiate emotions, they may be unable to utilize this information to share and understand the emotions of others, or vice versa. These results could have implications for understanding poor interpersonal relationships and impaired social functioning following TBI.