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Empathic embarrassment towards non-human agents in virtual environments.

Harin Hapuarachchi1, Kento Higashihata2, Maruta Sugiura2

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Humans experience empathic embarrassment towards robot avatars, though cognitive empathy is lower compared to human avatars. Plausibility differences may explain some of this variation in empathic responses.

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Area of Science:

  • Human-computer interaction
  • Social robotics
  • Psychology

Background:

  • Humans commonly experience empathic embarrassment when witnessing others in awkward situations.
  • The capacity for empathic embarrassment with non-human entities like robots remains an open question.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To investigate whether humans feel empathic embarrassment towards robot avatars.
  • To compare empathic embarrassment and cognitive empathy elicited by human versus robot avatars.
  • To explore the role of plausibility in mediating empathic responses to avatars.

Main Methods:

  • Participants observed human and robot avatars in embarrassing and non-embarrassing scenarios.
  • Data collected included self-reported empathic embarrassment and cognitive empathy (7-point Likert scale).
  • Physiological data (skin conductance) and perceived plausibility were also measured.

Main Results:

  • Both empathic embarrassment and cognitive empathy were higher in embarrassed conditions for both avatar types.
  • Cognitive empathy was significantly higher for the human avatar compared to the robot avatar.
  • A trend suggested higher skin conductance for the human avatar during embarrassing scenarios; plausibility was higher for the human avatar.

Conclusions:

  • Humans can experience empathic embarrassment and cognitive empathy towards robot avatars.
  • Cognitive empathy is generally lower for robot avatars compared to human avatars.
  • Differences in perceived plausibility may contribute to variations in empathic responses between human and robot avatars.