Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Testing Empathy with Robots: A Model in Four Dimensions and Sixteen Items

  • Published:
International Journal of Social Robotics Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

The four-dimensional model of empathy presented in this paper addresses human–human, human–avatar and human–robot interaction, and aims at better understanding the specificities of the empathy that humans might develop towards robots. Its first dimension is auto-empathy and refers to an empathetic relationship with oneself: how can a human directing a robot expand the various components of empathy he feels for himself to this robot? The second is direct empathy: what does a human attribute to a robot in terms of thoughts, emotions, action potentials or even altruism, on the model of what he imagines and attributes to himself? The third dimension is reciprocal empathy that consists of thinking that a robot is able to identify with me, feel or guess my emotions and thoughts, anticipate my actions and wear me assistance if necessary. Finally, the fourth dimension, intersubjective empathy, is about thinking and imagining that a robot can inform me of things - emotions, thoughts that I am likely to experience- that I do not know about myself. Each of these four dimensions includes four different components: (1) Action (empathy of action), (2) Emotion (emotional empathy), (3) Cognition (cognitive empathy) and (4) Assistance (empathy of assistance). This theoretical model of empathy in four dimensions and four components defines sixteen items whose relevance will be tested in the near future through comparative experimental research involving human-human and human-robot interaction.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  1. Tisseron S (2010) L’empathie au cæur du jeu social. Albin Michel, Paris

    Google Scholar 

  2. Tordo F, Tisseron S (2013) Les diverses formes de l’empathie dans le jeu vidéo en ligne : propositions et experimentation. In: Tisseron S (ed) Empathie et subjectivation dans les mondes numériques. Dunod, Paris, pp 83–110

    Google Scholar 

  3. Tordo F (2013) Le jeu vidéo, un espace de subjectivation par l’action. L’auto-empathie médiatisée par l’action virtuelle. Revue québécoise de psychol 34(2):245–263

    Google Scholar 

  4. Tordo F, Binkley C (2016) L’Auto-empathie, ou le devenir de l’autrui-en-soi : définition et clinique du virtuel. Evol Psychiatr 81(1):1–16

    Google Scholar 

  5. Tordo F (2012) Psychanalyse de l’action dans le jeu vidéo. Adolescence 79(1):119–132

    Article  Google Scholar 

  6. Virole B (2003) Du bon usage des jeux vidéo, et autres aventures virtuelles. Hachette littératures, Paris

    Google Scholar 

  7. Tisseron S (2008) Le corps et les écrans. Toute image est portée par le désir d’une hallucination qui devienne réelle. Champ Psychosom 52(04):47–57

    Article  Google Scholar 

  8. Tisseron S (ed) (2006) L’enfant au risque du virtuel. Dunod, Paris

    Google Scholar 

  9. Ishiguro H (2006) Interactive humanoids and androids as ideal interfaces for humans. In: Proc 11th Int Conf on Intelligent user interfaces, IUI ’06. New York, NY, USA, pp 2–9

  10. Varela FJ, Thompson E, Rosch E (1991) The embodied mind; cognitive science and human experience. MIT Press, Cambridge

    Google Scholar 

  11. Powers A, Kiesler S (2006) The advisor robot: Tracing people’s mental model from a robot’s physical attributes. In: Proc Conf. Human-Robot Interaction, pp 218–225

  12. Powers A, Kramer A, Lim S, Kuo J, Lee S, Kiesler S (2005) Eliciting information from people with a gendered humanoid robot. In: Proc IEEE Int. Workshop Robot and Human Interactive Communication, pp 158–163

  13. Eyssel F, Hegel F, Horstman G, Wagner C (2010) Anthropomorphic inferences from emotional nonverbal cues: a case study. In: Proc IEEE Int. Symp. Robot and Human Interactive Communication, pp 681–686

  14. Turkle S (2006) A nascent robotics culture: new complicities for companionship. AAAI Technical Report Series

  15. Kühnlenz B, Sosnowski S, Buß M, Wollherr D, Kühnlenz K, Buss M (2013) Increasing helpfulness towards a robot by emotional adaptation to the user. Int J Soc Robot 5:457–476

    Article  Google Scholar 

  16. Leite I, Castellano G, Pereira A, Martinho C, Paiva A (2014) Empathic robots for long-term interaction. Int J Soc Robot 6:329–341

    Article  Google Scholar 

  17. Decety J (2004) L’empathie est-elle une simulation mentale de la subjectivité d’autrui? In: Berthoz A, Jorland G (eds) L’empathie. Odile Jacob, Paris, pp 53–88

    Google Scholar 

  18. Cosnier J, Rey F, Robert F (1996) Le corps, les affects et la relation á l’autre. Thér Fam 17(2):195–200

    Google Scholar 

  19. Meltzoff A (2002) La théorie du “like me”, précurseur de la compréhension sociale chez le bébé : imitation, intention et intersubjectivité. In: Nadel J, Decety J (eds) Imiter pour découvrir l’humain. Psychologie, neurobiologie, robotique et philosophie de l’esprit. PUF, Paris

    Google Scholar 

  20. Nadel J, Decety J (2002) Imiter pour découvrir l’humain. Psychologie, neurobiologie, robotique et philosophie de l’esprit. PUF, Paris

    Google Scholar 

  21. Nadel J, Revel A, Andry P, Gaussier P (2004) Toward communication : first developmental steps of imitation in infants, children with autism and robots. Stud Interact 5(1):45–75

    Article  Google Scholar 

  22. Favre D, Joly J, Reynaud C, Salvador LL (2005) Empathie, contagion émotionnelle et coupure par rapport aux émotions. Enfance 57(4):363–382

    Article  Google Scholar 

  23. Rosenthal-Von der Pütten A, Schulte F, Sobieraj S et al. (2013) Investigation on Empathy Towards Humans and Robots Using Psychophysiological Measures and fMRI. In: The annual meeting of the International Communication Association, Hilton Metropole Hotel, London, England

  24. Boulanger C, Lançon C (2006) L’empathie : réflexions sur un concept. Ann Méd Psychol 164:497–505

    Google Scholar 

  25. Krach S, Hegel F, Wrede B, Sagerer G, Binkofski F et al (2008) Can machines think? interaction and perspective taking with robots investigated via fMRI. PLoS ONE 3(7):e2597

    Article  Google Scholar 

  26. Koppula H, Saxena A (2013) Learning spatio-temporal structure from RGB-D videos for human activity detection and anticipation. In: Proc Int Conf on machine learning. Atlanta, USA, pp 792–800

  27. Tisseron S (2012) An assessment of combatant empathy for robots with a view to avoiding inappropriate conduct in combat. In: Doaré R, Danet D, Hanon J-P, de Boisboissel G (eds) Robots on the battlefield, contemporary issues and implications for the future. Combat Studies Institute press, US Army Combined Arms Center, Fort Leavenworth, Kansas & Ecoles de Saint-Cyr Coëtquidan, pp 165–180

  28. Singer PW (2009) Wired for war : the robotics revolution and conflict in the 21st century. Penguin, New York

    Google Scholar 

  29. Carpenter J (2013) The quiet professional: an investigation of US military explosive ordnance disposal personnel interactions with everyday field robots

  30. Cowley S, Kanda T (2005) Friendly machines: interaction-oriented robots today and tomorrow, Alternation

  31. Beran T, Ramirez-Serrano A, Kuzyk R, Nugent S, Fior M (2010) Would children help a robot in need? Int J Soc Robot 3:83–93

    Article  Google Scholar 

  32. Baddoura R, Zhang T, Venture G (2013) Experiencing the familiar, understanding the interaction and responding to a robot proactive partner. In: Proc ACM/IEEE Int Conf on Human-Robot Interaction. Tokyo, Japan, pp 247–248

  33. Bartneck C, Kanda T, Ishiguro H, Hagita N (2009) My robotic doppelganger - a critical look at the uncanny valley theory. In: Proc 18th IEEE Int Symposium on Robot and Human Interactive Communication, pp 269–276

  34. Canamero L (2002) Playing the emotion game with feelix: what can a lego robot tell us about emotion? In: Dautenhahn K, Bond A, Canamero L et al (eds) Socially intelligent agents: creating relationships with computers and robots. Kluwer Academic Publishers, Norwell, pp 69–76

  35. Baddoura R, Venture G (2013) Social versus useful HRI: experiencing the familiar, perceiving the robot as a sociable partner and responding to its actions. Int J Soc Robot 5:529–547

    Article  Google Scholar 

  36. Niculescu A, Van Dijk B, Nijholt A, Li H, See SL (2013) Making social robots more attractive: the effects of voice pitch, humor and empathy. Int J Soc Robot 5:171–191

    Article  Google Scholar 

Download references

Acknowledgments

The authors thank Carol Baddoura and Grégoire Pointeau for their efficient and valuable help in revising some technical aspects of this manuscript.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. CRPMS (EAD 3522), Paris 7 Diderot Université, 26 rue de Paradis, 75480, Paris Cedex 10, France

    Serge Tisseron & Frédéric Tordo

  2. INSERM U846, Stem-Cell and Brain Research Institute, 18 avenue du Doyen Lépine, 69500, Bron, France

    Ritta Baddoura

  3. Université de Lyon, Université Lyon 1, 69003, Lyon, France

    Ritta Baddoura

Authors
  1. Serge Tisseron
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Frédéric Tordo
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  3. Ritta Baddoura
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Ritta Baddoura.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Tisseron, S., Tordo, F. & Baddoura, R. Testing Empathy with Robots: A Model in Four Dimensions and Sixteen Items. Int J of Soc Robotics 7, 97–102 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12369-014-0268-5

Download citation

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12369-014-0268-5

Keywords

Search

Navigation