Asperger empathy vs. Neurotypical empathy

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What is the difference between Asperger empathy vs. neurotypical empathy?

What does it mean when some neurotypicals say we lack empathy. Do they mean that we lack empathy completely (like psychopaths) or do they mean that aspies feel less empathy than them. Also it often isn't specified, is it cognitive empathy that we lack or is it affective empathy?

Why do some people assume we have zero empathy like psychopaths? For example in high school, bullies made offensive jokes and rhymes that I am a potential serial killer because I am introverted and "don't talk enough".

I don't actually know if aspies have less empathy than neurotypicals, so I want to know, do we aspies have less empathy than neurotypicals or do we have the same level of empathy as neurotypicals, but neurotypicals fail to recognize this?

I think we can have trouble telling someone's feelings by their behaviour, and may not always feel what the other person feels, but we are able to care for people and be kind and sympathetic to them.

I completely disagree with the assumed lack of empathy!
Of course I am not in a position to generalize my perception of myself and some other autists that I have met to the whole ASD population. I can really take over the joy, happiness, sadness, pain that others feel. I know a lot of autist that can do exactly the same.
The assumption of a lack of empathy is routed in the often lacked skills of reading non verbal communication.
If someone breaks a leg and is in pain, that is clear. The same of someone is crying because he lost a love one... I can really share their emotion, because I know what it feels like and their feelings are communicated clearly (verbally).

However:

I can put myself in the place of others, but I often do not know how to show an appropriate and expected reaction to show my sympathy!
Often when I'm accused of a lack of empathy it happened because I violated some vague NT unwritten social rule. When they become upset, I haven't got the slightest clue why they are angry, because some NTs are like from a different culture / speaking different (body) language.
Upon mentioning my incomprehension of why they are behaving angry, mean... to me, they often say nasty stuff to me.
When they then shout autist to me in an insulting manner, I'm totally baffled! (If they know me and know I'm autistic, maybe they can explain the situation so I can respond in a proper way? I'm generally do not have bad intentions with the people around me!)

I think many people on this blog must experience the same!
Also, I often think it's the NTs that lack empathy. (Eg when they could empathise with the hell of sensory overload, they might try to accommodate instead of commenting that I'm a sensitive sissy). But my ideas on their lack of empathy belong in another thread, I believe.

You mentioned Affective empathy and Cognative empathy in your initial post. In general, those with ASD have plenty of Affect empathy (also known as deep empathy), but are lacking in Cognative (shallow) empathy.

Affective empathy is about the ability to regnoise the emotional state of others and be affected by it. You can tell that someone is sad and feel sorry for them; you might even become sad yourself as a result. Conversely, making others happy makes you happy.

Cognitive empathy is the instinctive ability to see things from someone else's perspective. You know someone is sad, you even understand why they're sad, but because you can't see things from their perspective, you have no clue what to do about it. I think, in my case, my lack of cognitive empathy also leads me to argue quite a bit since I can't easily see the other person's point of view.

One test given to young children for cognitive empathy is the Sally Anne test. You can find it here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QjkTQtggLH4

I, personally, pass the Sally Anne test easily, but I think one thing that's misunderstood about Cognitive empathy is that personal experience and logic can often, in simpler cases, cover up for its lack. It's easy for me to logically determine the correct answer to the Sally Anne test, but presumably a 6 year old hasn't yet developed that sense of logic, so they fall back on their cognitive empathy, which may or may not be sufficient to pass the test.

Cognitive empathy is the kind that autistics are described as lacking. However, as JSBACH notes, the issue is more about the decoding and understanding of another person’s behavior rather than fundamentally not experiencing an empathic response. Herein lies the problem with describing autistics as “lacking empathy.” To a lay person with little or no knowledge about ASD, it sounds like an autistic is being characterized as having no ability to care about other human beings. Nothing could be further from the truth. Autism produces challenges with receptive and/or expressive communication. As a result, autistics may look non-empathic because (1) it is harder to figure out that someone else has experienced something warranting an empathic response, (2) the expectation that one should be vocalizing an empathic response is harder to discern, and/or (3) it is difficult to express an empathic reaction once it occurs. But these challenges are not the same thing as actually being non-empathic. The latter is what is seen in anti-social personality disorder, not in autism.

The behaviors and expressions indicative of various mentations are socially constructed: Americans smile with their mouths and Japanese with their eyes, if i remember correctly. It seems like NTs subconsciously acculturate to their local conventions, making numerous errors all through their lives while shrugging them off.

Various expressions from other cultures consistently cause empathic errors. Greeting people with a wide grin to indicate friendliness isn't universal, but you'd be forgiven for thinking so if you grew up around people who did. The way they achieve a modicum of accuracy seems to be through everyone expressing themselves alike, by converging to the same signaling conventions as they grow up.

I feel like Resting B*tch Face is an example of this pernicious error in the empathy software, which I've seen people invent expressive disorders to explain instead of just admitting the flaw. "I'm not misreading your emotion, you're emoting incorrectly."

I would much rather ask a person to tell me how they are so I can avoid making such errors from presumption. But they don't so I have to scry. I complained to adults when I was a kid about not being able to verify if my scryings of their minds were correct and they just said something like "you'll figure it out".

That's definitely true for me as well. I'm not good at the "huggy, there there" reaction, but am good at listening, being calm and suggesting practical solutions.

I am with you on this I feel unsure possibly of how to react if its someone dear to me on how to exactly do the empathetic response of 'there there' but do feel that I should be doing some kind of soothing.....anyone else I am great at giving a good ear and suggesting practical help.

If something is going array for me personally, its the end of the world until I get to the point of seeing my way through it.

I think NTs are more likely to have an emotional response before they become consciously aware...much like a reflex, because they can better subconsciously process non verbal cues, while those on the spectrum may have processing differences which make them have to consciously seek to pick up on non verbal cues and consciously process the situation.

So NTs feel first and then think and those on the spectrum are more likely to think first and then feel.

I may not be as emotionally intelligent as my NT sister but because I don't have as much of a subconscious emotional response and have to think more about how another person feels, I often outperform NTs on empathy and being supportive.

I would say it is the opposite. People often don't understand me and my feelings. According to the psychologist I lack empathy too. I think it's mutual misunderstanding.

Hopefully, one day we will write the textbooks about ourselves. As of now, the NT perception of us is one of inability. We are not yet recognized as equals with a different wiring.

I understand how others feel. I often struggle to determine why xyz triggered that response. Their answer I normally find illogical.

And typically the reason I don't understand is that the NT has deceived me before. My neurotypical family and friends often say that they are okay when they are not.

Of course my sixth sense picked up that something was wrong but then when they told me that they were okay it led me to believe that my sixth sense was wrong.

I understand the lies we tell ourselves and others. I know that when something is particularly embarrassing we may not want to admit it. When something is going to question our worldview we may not be ready to face it.

Knowledge that people can be deceptive and understanding why they might be deceptive doesn't give me the ability to read past the deception.

My suggestion is this if you want someone with AS to show you empathy then be honest with them about what you're feeling or at least be honest with the fact that you're not ready to be honest.

for example if someone asked me how I'm feeling and I don't want to go into, I am 100% honest in my response "I'm going to tell you I'm happy because that is the best way to avoid a further conversation in which I'd have to reveal something that would result in me crying."

If someone doesn't give me that basic level of honesty, then I do not understand why they expect empathy.

Empathy: the abiilty to understand and share the feelings of another.

Someone judges you harshly and incorrectly because they don't understand you?
Someone calls you a name because you don't respond the way they would have?
Someone bullies you because you don't talk a lot?
Someone excludes you from social activities when you're ten or sixteen of sixty because you dress in a way that they don't approve of? Or prefer different activities than they do?

That is the definition of a lack of empathy.
Not to mention "black and white thinking".

I would suggest that you tell them to go __(your torment of choice)__. But that would be unkind. And totally lacking in empathy toward them. Although I do understand how you feel.

I think the only difference is that pregnant pause time delay where your mind is scrambling to know what to say, how to react etc. If you go too long then it become inappropriate to use some responses so you end up making no reaction and then there is the fail.

I know when to respond, I have a long list of pre rehearsed responses but I often am slow still. I am way too empathetic for my own good and spend ridiculous amounts of time feeling these emotions for other people. But in private so they are unlikely to ever know I give a s**t. A total waste I know, but I have to process it naturally.

I think it's more of neurotypicals have similar wiring with each other therefore know how to interact and interpret one another accordingly. While those on the spectrum have similar wiring and therefore know to interact and interpret one another accordingly. It's like two different cultures meeting for the first time. They both see the same things as meaning different things and therefore requiring different reactions. So I believe neurotypical and autistic empathy is probably the same.