From Digital Media to Empathic Spaces: A Systematic Review of Empathy Research in Extended Reality Environments

Abstract

Recent advances in extended reality (XR) technologies have enabled new and increasingly realistic empathy tools and experiences. In XR, all interactions take place in different spatial contexts, all with different features, affordances, and constraints. We present a systematic literature survey of recent work on empathy in XR. As a result, we contribute a research roadmap with three future opportunities and six open questions in XR-enabled empathy research across both physical and virtual spaces.

How to Worship in the Metaverse: Religious Experience and the Affordances of a New Medium

“….simulations enable users to understand the experience of others regardless of their own temporal, cultural, demographic, or spatial context. (Paananen et al 2023) In an online religious environment, empathy is required in order to establish, maintain, and expand the recognition users have for the situation of others. Empathy is an affordance that can deepen the sense of belonging held by users by creating a pattern of expressing and sharing the differences that users experience and that represent varying social contexts and conditions.…”