Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society

This study investigates the effect of cognitive load on the empathetic decision-making process through two experiments. Experiment 1 (N=30) employed a within-subject design via the Empathy Selection Task (Cameron et al., 2019). In the experiment, participants were required to choose between an empathy focused 'Feel' deck and a non-empathy focused 'Describe' deck under varying levels of cognitive demand, followed by a recognition task. Consistent with the cognitive cost hypothesis, high cognitive load significantly increased empathy avoidance. Experiment 2 (N=30) introduced prior stimulus exposure to the decision-making phase to examine its effects. In contrast to Experiment 1, results indicated no significant association between cognitive load and empathy selection when the target stimulus is pre-exposed. These findings suggest a dissociation between empathic capacity and empathic propensity. Although cognitive load can deter the initiation of empathy, prior exposure to the target can sustain empathic engagement. Suggesting that awareness of empathic demand may offset avoidance.