Empathy Toward Virtual Humans Depicting a Known or Unknown Person Expressing Pain

Abstract

This study is about pain expressed by virtual humans and empathy in users immersed in virtual reality. It focuses on whether people feel more empathy toward the pain of a virtual human when the virtual human is a realistic representation of a known individual, as opposed to an unknown person, and if social presence is related to users' empathy toward a virtual human's pain. The 42 participants were immersed in virtual reality using a large immersive cube with images retro projected on all six faces (CAVE-Like system) where they can interact in real time with virtual characters. The first immersion (baseline/control) was with a virtual animal, followed by immersions involving discussions with a known virtual human (i.e., the avatar of a person they were familiar with) or an unknown virtual human. During the verbal exchanges in virtual reality, the virtual humans expressed acute and very strong pain. The pain reactions were identical in terms of facial expressions, and verbal and nonverbal behaviors. The Conditions by Time interactions in the repeated measures analyses of variance revealed that participants were empathic toward both virtual humans, yet more empathic toward the known virtual human. Multivariate regression analyses revealed that participants' feeling of social presence--impression that the known virtual character is really there, with them--was a significant predictor of empathy.

Assessing children’s empathy through a Spanish adaptation of the Basic Empathy Scale: parent’s and child’s report forms

“…As suggested by Goubert et al (2009) , closer relationships (e.g., parent–child or other family relationships) are expected to elicit faster and stronger empathic responses than stranger or adversarial relationships. In support of this interpretation, parents in this study scored children’s empathy as higher compared to self-reported measures, and there is evidence that observers’ empathic reactions to other’s physical pain are stronger when suffered by a known person compared to one unknown ( Bouchard et al, 2013 ). In concordance, Meyer et al (2013) found different activation networks in processing other’ social suffering depending on the status of the observed person, with a friend’s suffering activating affective pain regions associated with the direct experience of pain, whereas observing a stranger’s suffering activated regions associated with thinking about mental states of others.…”

Virtual Viewing Time: The Relationship between Presence and Sexual Interest in Androphilic and Gynephilic Men

“…Realism of virtual characters can be seen as another dimension of presence, social presence or co-presence. Social presence “reflects how users immersed in VR feel that virtual humans are really there, in the room, with them.” (p. 62) [ 73 ]. Social presence can be divided into two concepts, one focusing on the perception of embodied virtual characters and one on the social responses to the virtual characters [ 74 ].…”

“…Yet, other studies showed the so called “uncanny valley” effect: the more realistic a human virtual character, the lower the tolerance for (even small) imperfections in behavioral realism. It could be that a highly realistic virtual character results in a lower social presence than a minor realistic character due to these small imperfections [ 73 – 75 ]. Nevertheless, it is important to note that realism of virtual characters is only one factor influencing social presence and we did not assess social presence or co-presence in a direct manner.…”

Validating a Virtual Environment for Sexual Assault Victims

“…The participants were paid (CAN$12/hr) after completing the experiment. The experiment took place in a CAVE-like system (Cruz-Neira, Sandin, & DeFanti, 1993) located at the UQO's cyberpsychology lab (see Bouchard et al, 2013 for a description of the hardware). CAVE (Automated Virtual Environment-the "C" refers to the allegory of the cave by the Greek philosopher Plato) is a trademarked immersive technology using stereoscopic images projected on large walls.…”

“…The heart rate was analyzed using an electrocardiogram measured using a Polar strap. The data were recorded using Thought Technology's ProComp+ program and Infinity software (http://thoughttechnology.com, see Bouchard et al, 2013 for a description of the hardware). These data were continuously transmitted and recorded wirelessly in the second half of the meeting during a base-level measuring period (2 min) and the VR immersions.…”