Mind reading is an essential part of normal social functioning and empathy plays a key role in social understanding. This study investigated how individual differences can have an effect on reading emotions in facial expressions, focusing on empathizi...
Mind reading is an essential part of normal social functioning and empathy plays a key role in social understanding. This study investigated how individual differences can have an effect on reading emotions in facial expressions, focusing on empathizing and systemizing. Three experiments were conducted. In study 1, participants performed emotion recognition test using facial expressions to investigate how emotion recognition can be different as empathy-systemizing type(Extreme Type E, Type E , Type B, Type S, and Extreme Type S), facial areas(face, eyes, and mouth), and emotion type(basic emotion and complex emotion). In study 2, participants performed the easier version of emotion recognition test. In study 1-2, main effects for facial areas and emotion type was found, but not for the empathy-systemizing type. Also, there was an interaction effect between facial areas and emotion type. Study 3 examined how emotion recognition can be different as empathy-systemizing type, facial areas, and emotion type. An emotion discrimination test was used instead, with every other condition the same as in studies 1 and 2. Results from study 3 showed mostly same results as study 1 and 2: there were significant differences among facial areas and emotion type and also have an interaction effect between facial areas and emotion type. On the other hand, there was an interaction effect between empathy-systemizing type and emotion type in study 3. That is, how much people empathize and systemize can make difference in emotional discrimination. These results suggested that the empathy-systemizing type was more appropriate to explain emotion discrimination than emotion recognition.