High functioning autism and empathy

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One thing that confuses me, is that I am very empathetic. Its almost like i can "hear" peoples emotions, but i never have any idea what to do with it. All i want to do is go up to them and let them know that i know their emotions. Does anyone else have this problem? What do you think of it, considering that, generally, people with aspergers struggle with empathy?

This is fairly common with people on the spectrum. I personally am only empathetic in the literal sense, in that if I am around somebody in a very emotional state, then I am over-encumbered by a negative emotion. Except, even though I can somewhat "feel" their emotion, I do not care that they are feeling this way. Empathetic, but not sympathetic.

I always thought I was reasonably empathetic - but according to the Empathetic Quotient - I am less so than most people on the spectrum. I think I am in fact reasonably sympathetic and compassionate - I just don't clue into how others think and feel very well...

Test taken by you on 23 September 2014 18.0

The average score for males with ASD (145 people took this test) 22.8
The average score for females with ASD (159 people took this test) 21.8
The average score for males with suspected ASD (1054 people took this test) 19.9
The average score for females with suspected ASD (1698 people took this test) 23.8
The average score for male neurotypicals (450 people took this test) 35.9
The average score for female neurotypicals (716 people took this test) 41.9

http://aspietests.org/eq/index.php

Usage - From the Oxford Dictionary

People often confuse the words empathy and sympathy. Empathy means ?the ability to understand and share the feelings of another? (as in ?both authors have the skill to make you feel empathy with their heroines?), whereas sympathy means ?feelings of pity and sorrow for someone else?s misfortune? (as in ?they had great sympathy for the flood victims?).

http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/defin ... sh/empathy

Eeeeeek, guess I should now take back what I said about being empathetic...

Score Test taken by you on 23 September 2014 9.0
The average score for males with ASD (145 people took this test) 22.8
The average score for females with ASD (160 people took this test) 21.9
The average score for males with suspected ASD (1054 people took this test) 19.9
The average score for females with suspected ASD (1699 people took this test) 23.8
The average score for male neurotypicals (450 people took this test) 35.9
The average score for female neurotypicals (716 people took this test) 41.9

I guess maybe I don't feel their emotion maybe as much as I thought and I'm really just being overwhelmed by the situation. Or I guess it goes back to what I said about "only in the literal sense". Not empathetic or sympathetic then...

I have lots of empathy available but I'm usually wrong about what people are feeling.

Very Empathetic here too, and from early age. But many here on WP do express issues with empathy, so I do not think increased empathy is a autistic tendency either.

All I can say is not all match the stereotype.

I reckon that I have a lot of empathy too. It's crippling sometimes.

I am very empathetic. It's almost like I feel the person's anger or sadness. The only problem is... I have a difficult time expressing those feelings. D:

Uuh! Low score today. Some of the questions are quite hard to determine, because the answer depends.... For instance "Social situation" is a very broad definition.

I am often overwhelmed by the emotions and tragedy of others and can "feel their pain", - which in fact is impossible, as I can only feel my own, - but I can also be empatic face to face, or towards a group - and sometimes even be a pretty good advisor.

Being empatic is not getting overwhelmed. It is understanding how it must be for them and maybe come up with useful advice or just be supportive.
It is an intellectual process, rooted in social imagination, - which we are not supposed to have.

I "feel" other people very clearly. But I find the energies of emotion neurotypical send off don't properly register to me, even I clearly perceive them. I will interpret their emotion to actually be something other than what it is.

This post by Birdsleep contains an excellent link to research on the topic of empathy http://www.wrongplanet.net/postp6265172.html#6265172.

The topic is a source of a lot of confusion because empathy is a very broad term that covers several distinct aspects. Researchers sometimes qualify which aspect they are looking into as for example in the paper referenced in the above post, which explores emotional empathy (EE is an emotional response in an individual that stems from and parallels the emotional state of another individual.) vs. cognitive empathy (CE is the ability to understand and predict the behavior of others in terms of attributed mental states, particularly epistemic mental states such as believing, knowing, pretending, and guessing.).

Some of the most interesting observations from the paper are highlighted below:
In this article, I distinguish between direct EE (i.e., spontaneous EE not derived from CE ) and indirect EE (i.e., EE derived from CE ). Direct EE can occur as a response to overt cues, such as another?s facial expressions or emotional vocalizations. Indirect EE depends on an understanding of another?s mental state and involves the ability to share an emotional state that is inferred but not observed. With direct EE , the empathizer may or may not be fully aware that he or she is sharing the emotion of another. ... CE appears to be adaptive because it underpins sophisticated verbal and nonverbal communication, Machiavellian intelligence, general social expertise, and parenting skills. EE provides a basis for social bonding, parent?offspring bonding, helping behavior, and group cohesion.

Autistics have difficulty in picking up nonverbal communication and in intuitively picking up competitive social games, i.e. we are perceived as socially naive. At the same time some of us have a very high level of emotional empathy or sympathy, and are directly affected by the emotions of those around us, but we may react in untypical ways or be incapable of a visible reaction depending on the context and the strength of the emotional trigger.