title: Affective and cognitive empathy in adolescents with autism spectrum disorder.
abstract: The broad construct of empathy incorporates both cognitive and affective dimensions. Recent evidence suggests that the subjects with autistic spectrum disorder (ASD) show a significant impairment in empathic ability. The aim of this study was to evaluate the cognitive and affective components of empathy in adolescents with ASD compared to controls. Fifteen adolescents with ASD and 15 controls underwent paper and pencil measures and a computerized Multifaceted Empathy Test. All measures were divided into mentalizing and experience sharing abilities. Adolescents with ASD compared to controls showed deficits in all mentalizing measures: they were incapable of interpreting and understanding the mental and emotional states of other people. Instead, in the sharing experience measures, the adolescents with ASD were able to empathize with the emotional experience of other people when they express emotions with positive valence, but were not able to do so when the emotional valence is negative. These results were confirmed by the computerized task. In conclusion, our results suggest that adolescents with ASD show a difficulty in cognitive empathy, whereas the deficit in affective empathy is specific for the negative emotional valence.
authors.affiliation: Department of Life, Health and Environmental Sciences, University of L'Aquila L'Aquila, Italy.
authors.forename: Monica
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Mazza
authors.affiliation: Department of Life, Health and Environmental Sciences, University of L'Aquila L'Aquila, Italy.
authors.forename: Maria C
authors.initials: MC
authors.lastname: Pino
authors.affiliation: Department of Life, Health and Environmental Sciences, University of L'Aquila L'Aquila, Italy.
authors.forename: Melania
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Mariano
authors.affiliation: Department of Life, Health and Environmental Sciences, University of L'Aquila L'Aquila, Italy.
authors.forename: Daniela
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Tempesta
authors.affiliation: Department of Life, Health and Environmental Sciences, University of L'Aquila L'Aquila, Italy.
authors.forename: Michele
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Ferrara
authors.affiliation: Psychiatric Service of Diagnosis and Treatment, Department of Mental Health, G. Mazzini Hospital Teramo, Italy.
authors.forename: Domenico
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: De Berardis
authors.affiliation: Department of Applied Clinical Sciences and Biotechnology, Section of Clinical Epidemiology and Environmental Medicine University of L'Aquila L'Aquila, Italy.
authors.forename: Francesco
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Masedu
authors.affiliation: Department of Applied Clinical Sciences and Biotechnology, Section of Clinical Epidemiology and Environmental Medicine University of L'Aquila L'Aquila, Italy ; Reference Regional Centre for Autism, Abruzzo Region Health System L'Aquila, Italy.
authors.forename: Marco
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Valenti
keywords: adolescents; affective empathy; autistic spectrum disorder (ASD); cognitive empathy; experience sharing; mentalizing