From face to face: the contribution of facial mimicry to cognitive and emotional empathy

Figures & data

Figure 1. Example of a cognitive empathy condition item (left) and an emotional empathy condition item (right) of the MET.

Figure 2. Example of a trial of the MET.

Table 1. Cognitive and emotional empathy values of the MET.

	Positive expressions	Negative expressions	Overall
Cognitive empathy (percentage of correct answers)	0.75 (0.43)	0.73 (0.44)	0.74 (0.10)
Emotional empathy (on a scale of 1–9)	5.31 (2.42)	5.15 (2.33)	5.23 (1.30)

Table 2. Correlations of MET scores with subscales of IRI.

	MET emotional empathy			MET cognitive empathy
	Overall	pos	neg	Overall	pos	neg
EC	0.33**	0.22	0.37**	0.01	−0.07	0.12
PT	0.21	0.21	0.17	0.17	0.07	0.23
FS	0.17	0.14	0.16	0.29*	0.25*	0.26*
PD	0.22	0.09	0.32*	−0.06	−0.14	0.09

Note: EC = Empathic Concern, PT = Perspective Taking, FS = Fantasy, PD = Personal Distress; pos = positive emotions, neg = negative emotions. ** < 0.01, * < 0.05.

Figure 3. Activity of both muscles over time separated by valence.

Table 3. Correlations of MET scores with facial mimicry.

	Facial mimicry
	Overall	neg	pos
CE (MET) – indivi.	0.06	0.13	0.10 s
EE (MET) – indivi.	0.24* s	0.25*	0.15
CE (MET) – item	0.01	−0.23	0.22 s
EE (MET) – item	0.57***	0.21	0.78***

Note: Facial mimicry measured for the specified subtask only. CE = only for cognitive empathy condition of MET, EE = only for emotional empathy condition of MET; pos = positive emotions, neg = negative emotions. *** < 0.001, ** < 0.01, * < 0.05.

_s = Spearman-correlation used in case of evidence for non-normal distribution.

Table 4. Prediction of emotional empathy in the MET with dummy coded valence (0 – positive, 1 – negative).

	Coefficient	Standard error	Z	p
Mimicry	−0.03	0.08	−0.33	.74
Valence (positive)	0.10	0.08	1.28	.20
Mimicry × valence (positive)	0.49	0.10	4.82	<.0001

Table 5. Prediction of emotional empathy in the MET.

	Coefficient	Standard error	T	p
Mimicry	3.32	1.27	2.62	.01
Trait empathic concern (IRI)	0.15	0.06	2.51	.02

Table 6. Correlations of IRI subscale scores with facial mimicry.

	Facial mimicry
	Overall	cog	emo
EC	−0.05	−0.17	0.11
PT	0.12	0.08	0.12
FS	0.14	0.15	0.07
PD	−0.11	−0.17	−0.01

Note: cog = only for cognitive empathy condition of MET, emo = only for emotional empathy condition of MET; pos = positive emotions, neg = negative emotions. ** < 0.01, * < 0.05.

Figure 4. Mean mimicry activity separated by valence and condition.

Figure 5. Learning curve of the random forest predicting the empathy condition (cognitive versus emotional).