Empathy components in autism
Empathy is a complex process that involves both cognitive and affective components as well as other components including motivation and ability. Autism is defined as difficulties relating to others which some people have theorised involves deficits of empathy, which are thought to be extensions of the typical sex differences in empathising, and this conceptualisation of autism has been termed the extreme male brain. But little research has been done looking at empathy components in autism compared to controls, partly because there are not many tools to measure the components of empathy. We have developed a new questionnaire that measures the various components theorised to be part of empathy which will be outlined in this talk, and we have compared these empathy components between adults with and without autism including samples of males and females with and without autism to test the extreme male brain theory. These results will be presented along with future developments in this line of testing.
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Thursday 19th November 2019, h 3.00 PM
Sala Lauree Psicologia, U6 (3rd floor)
Free entry
Info:
Prof.ssa Paola Ricciardelli