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Emotional empathy plays a crucial role in social intra-species and inter-species interactions. However the role of interspecies interactions and of some personality components was underestimated. The present research explored electrophysiological correlates of affective processing in relation to emotionally valenced human-human (HH) and human-animal (HA) interactions. Further, we explored the link between such cortical responses and personality empathic profile as measured by the Balanced Emotional Empathy Scale (BEES) and the Interpersonal Reactivity Index (IRI). Both HH and HA interactions was associated to a significant increase of N300 and P300 deflections in response to positive and negative compared with neutral interactions. However, whereas N300 was mainly influenced by stimuli valence and was frontally distributed, P300 seemed to be mainly modulated by the stimuli attentional relevance and showed even a posterior distribution. Finally, a significant association was found between emotional empathy trait (BEES) and N300 amplitude. Results are discussed in light of the significance of empathic traits in mediating species-specific and speciesaspecific relationships.

Previous research investigated the presence of differential autonomic responses towards the emotions expressed by individuals from ingroup or outgroup contexts. Results found increased affective reactions and typical identification bias that can be explained, according to "the similarity factor", as the tendency to tune stronger with those perceived as more similar. Then, few previous studies explored the presence of such mechanisms in intra and interspecies contexts. However, further investigation is needed to better explore these issues in developmental samples and to different emotionally valenced stimuli. Thus, we asked 30 children to watch emotional pictures involving child-child (CC) and child-animal (CA) interactions with negative, positive, or neutral valence. Autonomic responses were recorded and compared across species and gender. Results showed a higher sensitivity to intraspecies emotional valence (increased heart rate for negative compared to neutral stimuli) which was visible only in the female group, thus confirming the presence of a gender effect.

Neuromanagement deals with neuroscience methodological approaches to the management. A management construct is leadership, but objective psychophysiological data in support of it are still missing. The present pilot study aimed to apply the hyperscanning paradigm during a role played employees’ evaluation. Our purpose was to identify lexical and neuro/psychophysiological markers of leader-employee interactions. The sample consisted in paired manager-collaborator couples. Managers were required to use two different communication styles: authoritative vs. cooperative. A conversational analysis permitted to identify main topics to interpret data. Results showed that the interview was more arousing for the employee than the manager. Greater Delta and Theta EEG bands could denote positive valence of personal interactions and company mission topics. Autonomic measures (Skin Conductance Response, SCR and Heart Rate, HR) showed important information related to different leadership style. Results highlight the importance of applying neurosciences to organizational contexts exploring processes related to manager-employee dynamics and communicative style.

Cooperation is usually described as a human tendency to act jointly that involves helping, sharing, and acting prosocially. Nonetheless clues of cooperative actions can be found also in non-humans animals, as described in the first section of the present work. Even if such behaviors have been conventionally attributed to the research of immediate benefits within the animal world, some recent experimental evidence highlighted that, in highly social species, the effects of cooperative actions on others’ wellbeing may constitute a reward per se, thus suggesting that a strictly economic perspective cant exhaust the meaning of cooperative decisions in animals. Here we propose, in the second section, that a deeper explanation concerning cognitive and emotional abilities in both humans and animals should be taken into account. Finally, the last part of the paper will be devoted to the description of synchronization patterns in humans within complex neuroscientific experimental paradigms, such as hyperscanning. 19