ArticleFrontiers in psychology2026
The development of cognitive and affective empathy from ages 3 to 20: a new experimental task.
Article in Frontiers in psychology, 2026. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Not yet cited in PubMed.
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
0 citing papers in PubMed.
No citing paper in PubMed yet.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
3 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Empathy is conceptualized as a multidimensional construct encompassing affective and cognitive components, yet their developmental trajectories and underlying mechanisms remain incompletely understood. The present research investigated how these dimensions develop across childhood and examined the potential contribution of executive functions, particularly switching abilities, to empathic processing using EmpaDEV1, a novel computerized performance-based paradigm. To address these objectives, two complementary studies were conducted. Study 1 examined age-related cross-sectional changes in affective and cognitive empathy-related processes with varying flexibility demands in a sample of 90 participants distributed across five age groups spanning developmental periods from early childhood to young adulthood (3-20 years). Study 2 introduced a short-improved version of the task (EmpaDEV2) in a sample of 29 children distributed across three age groups (3-12 years), controlling baseline motor speed and key-response learning time, refining the measurement of empathic processing efficiency. Across studies, affective empathy appeared relatively stable across development, whereas cognitive empathy showed significant improvements in both accuracy and response speed with age. Reaction time analyses indicated that cognitive empathy initially involves greater processing demands but becomes increasingly efficient across development. Results showed that increased flexibility demands significantly reduced empathy accuracy across development. Regression analyses suggested that standardized switching task significantly predicted individual differences in cognitive empathy beyond chronological age. Working-memory cueing significantly enhanced performance during early childhood. Convergent validity analyses however revealed moderate associations between EmpaDEV performance and standardized empathy questionnaires. Overall, the findings support an age-related account in which affective and cognitive empathy are initially differentiated and progressively integrated across childhood.
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.