Understanding Digitally-Mediated Empathy

Chatbot as an emergency exist: Mediated empathy for resilience via human-AI interaction during the COVID-19 pandemic

“…The present study examines how chatbots can serve as an “emergency exist” for users to increase resilience and enhance well-being during the COVID-19 pandemic. This study links multiple facets of empathy as a key mechanism of information processing ( Chang et al, 2021 ; Curran et al, 2019 ; Finn, 2009 ; Grondin et al, 2019 ; Leiberg & Anders, 2006 ) with the CTR ( Buzzanell, 2010 ), and further understands how empathic and resilience processes via human-AI interaction can help cope with COVID-19 disruption. Findings of this study identify five types of mediated empathy with varying degrees of cognitive empathy, affective empathy, and empathic response involved in human-AI interaction: companion buddy, responsive diary, emotion-handling program, electronic pet, and tool for venting.…”

“…As part of the emotional sharing and cognitive evaluation process, empathy is crucial for information processing and social interaction ( Chang et al, 2021 ; Pian et al, 2020 ). Empathizing or empathic processes engage in empathy influenced by the available informational cues ( Curran et al, 2019 ). In empathy-modulating processes, people use their feelings supplemented with information depending on the interpretability of that information ( Curran et al, 2019 ).…”

“…Empathizing or empathic processes engage in empathy influenced by the available informational cues ( Curran et al, 2019 ). In empathy-modulating processes, people use their feelings supplemented with information depending on the interpretability of that information ( Curran et al, 2019 ). As predicted by the Elaboration Likelihood Model (ELM), information processing can be enhanced through empathy ( Chebat, Vercollier & Gelinas-Chebat, 2003 ).…”

The Effect of Expressive Biosignals on Empathy and Closeness for a Stigmatized Group Member

“…Empathic accuracy was measured based on how much participants' ratings of the target's feelings (based on their valence, e.g., "very positive") matched the target's own ratings of their feelings, while state empathy was measured according to how much participants felt they were in the shoes of the target. Surprisingly, they found that biosignal information actually decreased empathic accuracy and did not affect state empathy [19]. There are several possible explanations for this result, including that the VR film may not provide sufficient context to infer emotional state, or by itself may result in a high baseline level of empathy.…”

PhysioKit: Open-source, Low-cost Physiological Computing Toolkit for Single and Multi-user Studies

“…Cardiovascular signals from PPG and perspiratory data from EDA have been explored to capture physiological states of students in remote classrooms [25,91] and to understand engagement levels of game players [43]. PPG signals have also been exploited to communicate the emotional states of group members to one another [72], or to connect people in public spaces [42], while EDA *Corresponding author (youngjun.cho@ucl.ac.uk) 1/22 arXiv:2308.02756v1 [cs.HC] 5 Aug 2023 signals have been used to evoke empathy through shared biofeedback [22]. Respiration cues have been used to help people understand and manage their stress [62,90], or to feel connected to others through sharing breathing signals [32].…”