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SUMMARY:Zero Degrees of Empathy - Professor Simon Baron-Cohen
DTSTART:20120228T181500Z
DTEND:20120228T193000Z
UID:TALK35754@talks.cam.ac.uk
CONTACT:James Scott-Brown
DESCRIPTION:Empathy is the drive to identify another person’s thoughts a
 nd feelings and to respond to these with an appropriate emotion. Empathy c
 omes by degrees\, with individual differences evident in the traditional b
 ell curve. We now know quite a lot about which parts of the brain are used
  when we empathize and how empathy develops in children. We also know that
  early experience affects empathy\, but so does biology: hormones in the w
 omb\, and specific genes. There are several ways in which one can lose one
 ’s empathy\, clearly seen in psychiatric conditions such as the personal
 ity disorders including the psychopath. However\, there is one condition\,
  autism\, which not only entails difficulties with empathy but can lead to
  a talent in ‘systemizing’: the aptitude to spot patterns in the world
 . We discuss how people with autism and psychopaths show opposite empathy 
 profiles. Finally\, the discovery that there may be ‘genes for empathy
 ’ implies that empathy may be the result of our evolution.
LOCATION:Winstanley Lecture Theatre\, Trinity College
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