Fig 1.
Empathic concern (EC) and personal distress (PD) as a result of physical and psychological pain combined with the focus of the observer.
Table 1.
Dimensions of the picture rating.
Table 2.
Results of the pre-test.
Fig 2.
Schema of the procedure of one block: Presentation of the description of a situation, followed by six trials consisting of the start screen (1000 ms), fixation cross (1500 ms), presentation of picture, tone presentation 1000 ms after picture onset, approach vs. avoidance movement (up to 2000 ms) leading to an increase or decrease of the picture and 500 ms after movement offset, feedback presentation (1000 ms).
At the end of the block, participants completed the Empathic Response Scale and the memory task. The picture was not part of the stimuli set but was selected for illustratory purposes.
Table 3.
Best-fitting model for empathic concern with type of pain, negative, and positive affect.
Table 4.
Best-fitting model for personal distress with type of pain and negative affect.
Fig 3.
Situational empathic concern and personal distress scores as a function of type of pain.
Table 5.
Best-fitting model for reaction time with situational empathic concern and personal distress.
Fig 4.
Response time in ms as a function of type of pain and movement direction.