Empathy for pain processing in individuals with elevated internet addiction scores: an event-related potential study

This study aimed to comprehensively elucidate patterns of empathy impairment using self-report, performance-based, and electrophysiological measures, alongside two cognitive measures, in individuals with elevated internet addiction (IA) scores (HIA, n = 20) compared to those with lower scores (LIA, n = 20). Empathy was assessed using the Interpersonal Reactivity Index and the Multifaceted Empathy Test. Participants also completed a task showing pictures of painful and non-painful stimuli, requiring ratings from the self and a stranger perspective.

No significant group differences were found in self-report and performance-based measures, or during the task. N2, P2, and P3 components were identified in the electrophysiological recordings. Only in the LIA group, larger P3 amplitudes during the “self” compared to the “stranger” block, and longer N2 latencies for painful relative to non-painful stimuli were observed.

No other differences were found in terms of amplitudes or latencies, but specific correlations between empathy and both IA scores and cognitive measures emerged in the HIA group only. The results suggest that electrophysiological processing of empathy-related stimuli in individuals with elevated IA scores is altered for self- vs. other-related and painful vs. non-painful empathic stimulation, reflected in P3 amplitudes and N2 latencies, respectively. In this group, empathy seems related to cognitive functioning.

Open Access funding enabled and organized by Projekt DEAL. This work was supported by the German Academic Exchange Programme (Deutscher Akademischer Austauschdienst, DAAD, Grant number 57507871, awarded to Dalia Arafat). Neuropsychological Therapy Centre, Faculty of Psychology, Ruhr University of Bochum, Bochum, Germany Dalia Arafat, Daria Schauten, Boris Suchan & Patrizia Thoma Department of Psychiatry, Ruhr University Bochum, LWL University Hospital, Bochum, Germany The authors declare no competing interests.

The local Ethics Board of the Faculty of Psychology, Ruhr University Bochum, approved the study. After providing the study information sheet, all participants gave their written informed consent to participate in the study. Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

Below is the link to the electronic supplementary material. Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material.