The mutual influences between working memory and empathy for pain: the role of social distance

Understanding the mechanisms behind the interaction of empathy for pain (EfP) and working memory (WM), particularly how they are influenced by social factors like perceived social distance (SD), is vital for comprehending how humans dynamically adapt to the complexities of social life. However, there is very little known about these mechanisms. Accordingly, we recruited 116 healthy participants to investigate the bidirectional influence and electrophysiological responses between WM and EfP, including the role of SD. Our research results revealed that the interaction between WM load and SD significantly influenced the processing of EfP. Specifically, high WM load and distant SD facilitated early processing of EfP. Conversely, low WM load and close SD promoted late processing of EfP. Furthermore, the interaction between EfP and SD significantly influenced the performance of ongoing WM tasks. Specifically, the kin's pain, compared to kin's nonpain, improved the participant's performance on low-load WM tasks; however, it diminished the participant's performance on tasks with high WM load. Overall, these results provide evidence at both behavioral and neural levels for the mutual influence of WM and EfP during the same temporal process, and SD emerged as a crucial moderating factor during these mutual influences.