ArticleSocial cognitive and affective neuroscience2025
Taking an embodied avatar's perspective modulates the temporal dynamics of vicarious pain and pleasure: a virtual reality and EEG study.
Article in Social cognitive and affective neuroscience, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 3 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
3 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it.
- EEG biomarkers of the sense of embodiment: methodological gaps and evidence-based recommendations from a systematic review.Frontiers in systems neuroscience · 2026Pooled it
- Surrogate bias: Behavioral and physiological effects of seeing ingroup and outgroup virtual agents touching one's embodied avatar.Computers in human behavior reports · 2026Article
- Rapid visual engagement in neural processing of detailed touch interactions.Imaging neuroscience (Cambridge, Mass.) · 2025Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
6 authors.
Funding
Abstract
Observing negative and positive valence virtual stimuli can influence the onlookers' subjective and brain reactivity. However, the relationship between vicarious experiences, observer's perspective-taking, and cerebral activity remains underexplored. To address this gap, we asked 24 healthy participants to passively observe pleasant, painful, and neutral stimuli delivered to a virtual hand seen from a first-person (1PP) or third-person perspective (3PP) while undergoing time and time-frequency EEG recording. Participants reported a stronger sense of ownership over the virtual hand seen from a 1PP, rated pain and touch valence appropriately, and more intense than the neutral ones. Distinct EEG patterns emerged across early (N2, early posterior negativity, EPN), late (late positive potential, LPP) event-related potentials, and EEG power. The N2 and EPN components showed greater amplitudes for pain and pleasure than neutral stimuli, particularly in 1PP. The LPP component exhibited lower amplitudes for pleasure than pain and neutral stimuli. Furthermore, theta-band power increased, and alpha power decreased for pain and pleasure stimuli viewed from a 1PP vs. 3PP perspective. In the ultra-late time window, we observed decreased theta, alpha, and beta-band power specifically associated with pleasure stimuli. Our study provides novel evidence that perspective-taking modulates the temporal dynamics of vicarious pain and pleasure.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.