A Spatial and Perspective Change Theory of the Difference Between Sympathy and Empathy

Abstract

Abstract Empathy is a multicomponent faculty of the human brain which is funda-mental for social interactions.Understanding its behavioural, cognitive, emotional neural mechanisms and pathology is a major interdisciplinary challenge..Here we propose, in relation with a modern conception of the Philosophical tradition of Phenomenology and a primary role of cognitive embodiement, a new theory in which we give an important although not exclusive, role to the brain mechanisms which also are involved in spatial cognition: we show, that there is a basic difference between *sympathy* and *empathy*. Whether sympathy is akin to emotional contagion and does not require the siubject to adopt the point of view of others, empathy requires a dynamic and complex manipulation of spatial reference frames. We give an example of an experiment using virtual reality in which a subject interacts with an artificial tight rope walker and discuss also the possible interindividual differences, and gender differences, in the different strategies used by subjects to have an empathic relationship.