'I see you': Pupillometric assessment of the causal role of affect sharing in vicarious fear learning [Poster presentation]

Vicarious fear learning, the process of acquiring fear responses through observing others’ aversive experiences, is crucial for social species and has clinical relevance for anxiety-related disorders.
Affect sharing (AS), an important component of empathy, is thought to play a role in vicarious fear learning through shared representation of the observed person’s emotional state. This study consists of additional analyses of data collected in a previous multi-method (fMRI, skin conductance response, pupillometry) experiment. Our aim was to investigate the causal role of AS in vicarious fear learning using model-based analysis of pupil data.
In a within-subjects design participants were exposed to high and low AS conditions elicited via hypnosis. During a learning phase, participants watched videos of demonstrators receiving electric shocks paired with conditioned visual stimuli predictive (CS+) or non-predictive (CS-) of the shocks. Fear memory strength was measured through differences in pupil size responses to the visual stimuli during a subsequent test phase (N = 44 subjects; 5 male, 39 female; mean age 21.23 years, range 18-29 years). Data were analyzed using Psychophysiological Modeling (PsPM) and linear mixed effects models.
Although results confirmed successful fear conditioning, fear memory strength did not differ between AS conditions. However, additional analyses suggested possible confounding factors. Moreover, the experiment was not optimized for pupillometry. In conclusion, we could not confirm that AS fosters vicarious fear learning. Future research should refine experimental design specifically for pupillometry and triangulate multiple measures to clarify the role of empathy in the social transmission of fear.

Keywords

Vicarious fear learning, empathy, pupillometry, psychophysiological modeling, fear conditioning

Authors

Timo Krug, Alexa Müllner-Huber, Tibor Stöffel, Claus Lamm
Department of Cognition, Emotion, and Methods in Psychology, University of Vienna

Citation

Krug, T., Müllner-Huber, A., Stöffel, T., & Lamm, C. (2025, February 24-26). "I see you": Pupillometric assessment of the causal role of affect sharing in vicarious fear learning [Poster presentation]. CoBeNe PhD Academy 2025, Vienna, Austria.