Empathy – Knowing Neurons

Do animals feel empathy?

September 20, 2021January 11, 2022 Mariella Careaga Animal, Behavior, Emotion, Empathy, Fear, feeling, Pain, social, Theory of mind

From a dad hugging his daughter who lost a sports game to a husband trying to alleviate his wife’s distress by listening to her, humans have the capacity to adopt… Read more

Big Ideas Sensation and Perception

Empathy: Building Social Interactions By Linking Our Emotional Lives

March 29, 2021March 31, 2021 Marco Travaglio Cognition, Consciousness, Emotion, Emotions, Empathy, fMRI, Mentalizing, Mirror Neurons

As social beings, humans have the ability to adapt their behavior to fit their social context. Whether we are meeting new classmates, conducting a job interview or helping a friend… Read more

Feature image depicting a brain in the center of a circle with a visual illusion background. On the left is a hand, palm up, holding a heart. On the right, another hand is tentatively reaching out to grab it. Designed by Alexa Erdogan.

Big Ideas Culture Philosophy Sensation and Perception

Understanding Visual Illusions Can Make Us More Empathetic

April 8, 2020April 8, 2020 McKenna Becker Bias, Blind spot, Cognition, Empathy, Illusion, Neuroplasticity, Optic nerve, Perception, philosophy, Photoreceptor, Politics, R.L. Gregory, Reality, Retina, Stroop Test, Top-Down Processing, V.S. Ramachandran, Visual Illusions

Philosophers and neuroscientists agree that if there is an objective reality, human beings can’t perceive it: philosophers refer to objective reality as a perception independent of any conscious awareness. Neuroscientists… Read more