Feel what you read: Specific aspects of empathy modulate semantic retrieval processes and representational content of emotion-label, emotion-laden, and neutral abstract words.

ABSTRACT: Building on evidence for experience-specific grounding of word meaning and interindividual differences therein, this study investigated how specific aspects of empathy modulate the processing and representation of abstract emotional words. We investigated single-trial N400 amplitudes as a measure of semantic retrieval in 78 healthy adults during a delayed lexical decision task with emotion-label, emotion-laden, and neutral abstract words. We further measured the participants' levels of empathic concern, fantasy, personal distress, and perspective taking. Additionally, ratings on valence, arousal, and emotional experience quantified the words' emotional representational content. While direct comparison yielded no evidence for N400 differences between word types, N400 amplitudes in response

SUBMITTER: Rademacher M 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC12818606 | biostudies-literature | 2026

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature