© iStockphotoSome people looking at this image will feel pain in their leg too.
The findings shed light on this extreme version of empathy, which is experienced by about 20 to 30 per cent of people, says pain researcher Dr Melita Giummarra of Monash University's school of psychological science and Caulfield Hospital in Melbourne.
"This is the first time physiological changes associated with vicarious pain have been measured," says Giummarra.
She was among the first researchers to demonstrate the proportion of healthy people who feel pain when they see another person in pain.
"People who are naturally prone to this will usually say they experience pain in the same body part the other person is experiencing it," says Giummarra.
While vicarious pain might seem to be a burden for those experiencing it, Giummarra says this is not necessarily the case.
"Most people who have this (and) are otherwise healthy say it's just a part of their normal experience, just like synaesthesia is just part of how some people interact with the world," she says.
In research presented at the recent 15th World Congress on Pain in Argentina, Giummarra and colleagues investigated nearly 20 women, around half of whom experienced vicarious pain.
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