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In the present study, we investigated whether inter-individual differences in vagally mediated heart rate variability (vmHRV) would be associated with inter-individual differences in empathy and alexithymia. To this end, we determined resting state HF-HRV in 90 individuals that also completed questionnaires assessing inter-individual differences in empathy and alexithymia. Our categorical and dimensional analyses revealed that inter-individual differences in HF-HRV were differently associated with inter-individual differences in empathy and alexithymia. We found that individuals with high HF-HRV reported more empathy and less alexithymia than individuals with low HF-HRV. Moreover, we even found that an increase in HF-HRV was associated with an increase in empathy and a decrease in alexithymia across all participants. Taken together, these findings indicate that individuals with high HF-HRV are more empathetic and less alexithymic than individuals with low HF-HRV. These differences in empathy and alexithymia may explain why individuals with high HF-HRV are more successful in sharing and understanding the mental and emotional states of others than individuals with low HF-HRV.
Much research has been devoted to the development of emotion recognition tests that can be used to investigate how individuals identify and discriminate emotional expressions of other individuals. One of the most prominent emotion recognition tests is the Reading the Mind in the Eyes Test (RME-T). The original RME-T has been widely used to investigate how individuals recognize complex emotional expressions from the eye region of adult faces. However, the RME-T can only be used to investigate inter-individual differences in complex emotion recognition during the processing of adult faces. To extend its usefulness, we developed a modified version of the RME-T, the Reading the Mind in the Eyes of Children Test (RME-C-T). The RME-C-T can be used to investigate how individuals recognize complex emotional expressions from the eye region of child faces. However, the validity of the RME-C-T has not been evaluated yet. We, thus, administered the RME-C-T together with the RME-T to a sample of healthy adult participants (n = 119). The Interpersonal Reactivity Index (IRI) and the Toronto Alexithymia Scale (TAS) were also administered. Participants’ RME-C-T performance correlated with participants’ RME-T performance, implying that the RME-C-T measures similar emotion recognition abilities as the RME-T. Participants’ RME-C-T performance also correlated with participants’ IRI and TAS scores, indicating that these emotion recognition abilities are affected by empathetic and alexithymic traits. Moreover, participants’ RME-C-T performance differed between participants with high and low TAS scores, suggesting that the RME-C-T is sensitive enough to detect impairments in these emotion recognition abilities. The RME-C-T, thus, turned out to be a valid measure of inter-individual differences in complex emotion recognition during the processing of child faces.