Not knowing what I feel: Emotional empathy in autism spectrum disorders.
Autistic adults may show normal body arousal yet report little feeling—check both signals.
01Research in Context
What this study did
Trimmer et al. (2017) compared adults with autism to neurotypical adults.
They showed both groups emotional pictures and measured heart rate and skin response.
They also asked, "How do you feel right now?" and gave empathy questionnaires.
What they found
The adults with autism had normal body reactions to the pictures.
Yet they said they felt less emotion and scored lower on trait empathy.
Their bodies reacted, but their words did not match the reaction.
How this fits with other research
Georgopoulos et al. (2022) seems to disagree. They found only tiny differences in how autistic adults name emotions.
The clash is simple: Antonia tested "Can you label the face?" while Emily tested "Do you feel anything inside?" Labeling and feeling are two separate steps.
Mul et al. (2018) extend Emily’s work. They show that when autistic adults also have alexithymia (trouble naming feelings), the gap between body and report grows even wider.
Lancioni et al. (2009) is an earlier cousin. They once thought autistic adults had lower skin response; Emily shows the response is normal—only the inner report is low.
Why it matters
If you run social-skills groups, do not assume a calm face means a calm body. Check both channels. Ask clients to rate their feelings on a 1–5 scale even when you see typical heart rate. Pair the numbers with biofeedback so they learn to notice body cues. This simple step can make empathy training more concrete and personal.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
While there is a general consensus in the literature that individuals with autism spectrum disorder have difficulty with cognitive empathy, much less is known about emotional empathy processing in these individuals. Most research has employed subjective self-report measures, which can often be misinterpreted or under-reported/over-reported. More objective measures such as psychophysiological recordings of arousal offer a more objective response. Furthermore, combining physiological responses with self-report ratings allows us to explore the relationship between these two responses to emotionally charged stimuli. A total of 25 individuals with autism spectrum disorder were compared with 25 matched controls on their physiological (arousal) and psychological (self-report) responses to emotionally distressing video scenes. These responses were also then compared with self-report cognitive and emotional trait empathy. Results indicate that while individuals with autism spectrum disorder appear to respond similarly to controls physiologically, their interpretation of this response is dampened emotionally. Furthermore, this dampening of self-report emotional response is associated with a general reduction in trait empathy.
Autism : the international journal of research and practice, 2017 · doi:10.1177/1362361316648520