0129 The Role of Alertness in Cognitive and Affective Empathy

Abstract Introduction Lack of sleep may harm the ability to accurately identify and experience others’ emotions. Yet it is unclear what outcome of sleep disruption is responsible for these effects. Specifically, can decreased alertness, a key outcome of insufficient sleep, help explain less empathizing? To this end, three studies tested the hypothesis that higher alertness foreshadows better empathic accuracy and higher empathic concern. Methods College-age participants took part in three studies (N’s of 227, 269, and 823). In all three studies, participants first reported on their subjective alertness using the Karolinska Sleepiness Scale and completed a 10-min Psychomotor Vigilance Test (PVT) to gauge their objective alertness. To measure cognitive and affective empathy, participants completed the Multifaceted Empathy Test (MET) where they had to accurately identify emotions from facial expression portraits (cognitive empathy) and report their empathic concern for each one (affective empathy). Study 2 was a replication of Study 1 using more diverse stimuli. In Study 3, some participants were randomly assigned to ingest 300 mg of caffeine before completing the tasks to experimentally increase their alertness (or received a placebo), and all participants completed an additional measure of affective empathy (Pictorial Empathy Test). Results In studies 1 and 2, slower response time on the PVT was significantly associated with lower levels of empathic concern (e.g. r= -.19, Study 1). Across all three studies, PVT lapses (e.g. r= -.24, Study 2) and false starts on the PVT, were significantly associated with poorer empathic accuracy (e.g. 1 r= -.31, Study 1). In study 3 those in the caffeine-administration group were more objectively alert and reported significantly higher affective empathy, measured by the pictorial empathy test (with only a trend on the MET), then the placebo and control group (d= .19). Conclusion These findings provide robust evidence that implicates lower alertness as a predictor of muted empathic responding and suggests alertness may support both cognitive and affective empathy. Changes in alertness may help explain how sleep disruption undermines individuals’ ability to empathize. Support (if any)