Cognitive and Affective Perspective-Taking: Evidence for Shared and Dissociable Anatomical Substrates

Abstract

Perspective-taking refers to the ability to recognize another person's point of view. Crucial to the development of interpersonal relationships and prosocial behavior, perspective-taking is closely linked to human empathy, and like empathy, perspective-taking is commonly subdivided into cognitive and affective components. While the two components of empathy have been frequently compared, the differences between cognitive and affective perspective-taking have been under-investigated in the cognitive neuroscience literature to date. Here, we define cognitive perspective-taking as the ability to infer an agent's thoughts or beliefs, and affective perspective-taking as the ability to infer an agent's feelings or emotions. In this paper, we review data from functional imaging studies in healthy adults as well as behavioral and structural imaging studies in patients with behavioral variant frontotemporal dementia in order to determine if there are distinct neural correlates for cognitive and affective perspective-taking. Data suggest that there are both shared and non-shared cognitive and anatomic substrates. For example, while both types of perspective-taking engage regions such as the temporoparietal junction, precuneus, and temporal poles, only affective perspective-taking engages regions within the limbic system and basal ganglia. Differences are also observed in prefrontal cortex: while affective perspective-taking engages ventromedial prefrontal cortex, cognitive perspective-taking engages dorsomedial prefrontal cortex and dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC). To corroborate these findings, we also examine if cognitive and affective perspective-taking share the same relationship with executive functions. While it is clear that affective perspective-taking requires emotional substrates that are less prominent in cognitive perspective-taking, it remains unknown to what extent executive functions (including working memory, mental set switching, and inhibitory control) may contribute to each process. Overall results indicate that cognitive perspective-taking is dependent on executive functioning (particularly mental set switching), while affective perspective-taking is less so. We conclude with a critique of the current literature, with a focus on the different outcome measures used across studies and misconceptions due to imprecise terminology, as well as recommendations for future research.

Keywords: affective; cognitive; emotion; empathy; frontotemporal dementia; neuroimaging; perspective-taking.

Figure 1

A model of the relationship between empathy and perspective-taking. In this model, both perspective-taking and empathy are subdivided into cognitive and affective components. ¹Cognitive perspective-taking refers to the ability to make inferences about others' thoughts and beliefs. ²Affective perspective-taking is the ability to make inferences about others' emotions and feelings. Affective-perspective taking is thus very closely related to cognitive empathy (illustrated by the dashed box). ³Cognitive empathy is ability to model another agent's emotions. It may be a prerequisite to affective empathy. ⁴Affective empathy results from a combination of cognitive empathy and emotional contagion. Here, the perceiver not only models the other agent's emotion, but also adopts it (i.e., affect sharing). Affect sharing thus distinguishes affective empathy from affective perspective-taking. ⁵Emotional contagion refers to the process by which emotions in one agent trigger isomorphic emotions in another agent. Emotional contagion may occur without conscious awareness.

Figure 2

Anatomic model of perspective-taking. In this network approach, the two types of perspective-taking share some cognitive and anatomic substrates. This core perspective-taking module is associated with the temporoparietal junction (TPJ) and precuneus (PCun). Cognitive and affective perspective-taking then diverge into separate components that are functionally dissociable, represented by the two separate boxes. Cognitive perspective-taking, in purple, uniquely engages dorsomedial prefrontal cortex (dmPFC) and dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (dlPFC). Affective perspective-taking, in orange, uniquely engages the amygdala (amyg), basal ganglia (BG), ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC), and inferior frontal gyrus (IFG).