Empathy is a lay term that is becoming increasingly viewed as a unitary function within the
field of cognitive neuroscience. In this paper, a selective review of the empathy literature is
provided. It is argued from this literature that empathy is not a unitary system but rather a
loose collection of partially dissociable neurocognitive systems. In particular, three main
divisions can be made: cognitive empathy (or Theory of Mind), motor empathy, and
emotional empathy. The two main psychiatric disorders associated with empathic …