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Proposed essential features for an emotional contagion system, with related locations in the brain. 

Proposed essential features for an emotional contagion system, with related locations in the brain. 

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Could a robot feel authentic empathy? What exactly is empathy, and why do most humans have it? We present a model which suggests that empathy is an emergent behavior with four main elements: a mirror neuron system, somatosensory cortices, an insula, and infant-directed " baby talk " or motherese. To test our hypothesis, we implemented a robot calle...

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... on these findings in neuroscience, we offer an architecture for robot empathy in Fig. 1, and a summary of the features in Fig. 2. A robot with empathy should model at least these three areas of the brain: a) mirror neurons in the premotor cortex, b) the insula c) and the somatosensory cortex. These correspond to three functional modules in a robot ...

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... It encompasses any reaction triggered by observing another individual's emotional state and subsequently activating one's own emotions [13]. Empathy research is broadly divided into two systems: affective empathy and cognitive empathy [14]. Affective empathy involves individuals directly and unconsciously experiencing the emotional state of another person, leading to a similar emotional response [15]. ...
... It encompasses any reaction triggered by observing another individual's emotional state and subsequently activating one's own emotions [13]. Empathy research is broadly divided into two systems: affective empathy and cognitive empathy [14]. Affective empathy involves individuals directly and unconsciously experiencing the emotional state of another person, leading to a similar emotional response [15]. ...
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Collaboration between humans and intelligent agents has become an integral component of everyday life due to advancements in intelligent technologies. Emotional communication plays a particularly important role in this human-computer relationship. In addition to enhancing experiences, emotional communication facilitates decision-making, improves efficiency, and serves various other beneficial purposes. Current research is focused on human-computer empathy, which enables intelligent agents to seamlessly integrate into human societies by simulating empathic emotions. This research draws upon knowledge from psychology , computer science, design, sociology, and other relevant disciplines. This paper provides an overview of human-computer empathy, covering definitions, principles, technical implementations, and design aspects to illuminate the complex landscape of knowledge in this area. Two specific areas are given detailed attention: technical implementation and empathy design. In the technical implementation section, the paper delves into the psychological theoretical foundations for developing artificial empathy models, techniques of affective computing, and related artificial empathy models. In the design section, it discusses methods for implementing empathic responses, analyzing designs using social psychology, and outlines various design principles and evaluation methods. Finally, the paper addresses ethical considerations, design challenges, and other pertinent topics.
... The ACC is involved in evaluating conflict, social pain, empathy, and moral judgments, allowing us to adjust our behavior based on social expectations (37). The insula integrates physical sensations with emotions and social experiences, facilitating empathy and decision-making based on others' feelings and perspectives (38). Other regions, including the TPJ and ventral striatum, contribute to understanding mental states and processing social rewards (39). ...
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Objective: Recent studies have utilized innovative techniques to investigate the neural mechanisms underlying social and individual decision-making, aiming to understand how individuals respond to the world. Method : In this review, we summarized current scientific evidence concerning the neural underpinnings of social decision-making and their impact on social behavior. Results: Critical brain regions involved in social cognition and decision-making are integral to the process of social decision-making. Notably, the medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) and temporoparietal junction (TPJ) contribute to the comprehension of others' mental states. Similarly, the posterior superior temporal sulcus (pSTS) shows heightened activity when individuals observe faces and movements. On the lateral surface of the brain, the inferior frontal gyrus (IFG) and inferior parietal sulcus (IPS) play a role in social cognition. Furthermore, the medial surface of the brain, including the amygdala, anterior cingulate cortex (ACC), and anterior insula (AI), also participates in social cognition processes. Regarding decision-making, functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) studies have illuminated the involvement of a network of brain regions, encompassing the ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC), ventral striatum (VS), and nucleus accumbens (NAcc). Conclusion: Dysfunction in specific subregions of the prefrontal cortex (PFC) has been linked to various psychiatric conditions. These subregions play pivotal roles in cognitive, emotional, and social processing, and their impairment can contribute to the development and manifestation of psychiatric symptoms. A comprehensive understanding of the unique contributions of these PFC subregions to psychiatric disorders has the potential to inform the development of targeted interventions and treatments for affected individuals.
... This automatic responding process is also known as emotional contagion [64]. Other researchers suggest that mirror neurons are only responsible for forming an internal representation of the observed states and require the insula to associate the internal representation with the observer's state [66,67]. On the other hand, cognitive empathy is the ability to understand others' mental state (beliefs, desires) by taking their perspective [68], which is related to theory of mind [69,70]. ...
... This heavily depends on the construction of an empathic understanding of others. Thus, artificial empathy in the scenario of HCD will focus on understanding people's experiences in their contexts, but not providing empathic responses to people (e.g., associating an emotion to a robot's own physical, bodily state [66]). (2) Ability to imagine and engage collaborative imagination. ...
... (1) Authenticity: The research of artificial empathy in social robotics has raised significant ethical concerns regarding its authenticity. As Lim and Okuno [66] posted: "If a robot displays sadness in response to your grief, does it really feel sad? Does it matter?". ...
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... This automatic responding process is also known as emotional contagion [63]. Other researchers suggest that mirror neurons are only responsible for forming an internal representation of the observed states and require insula to associate the internal representation with the observer's state [65,66]. On the other hand, cognitive empathy is the ability to understand others' mental state (beliefs, desires) by taking their perspective [67], which is related to theory of mind [68,69]. ...
... According to our framework of artificial empathy, most modules will be driven by data gathered from people and the contents they create, we need to be extremely cautious not to pick up biases from the data and lead to unethical results. Moreover, artificial empathy is perceived to lack authenticity [65], e.g., does having the capabilities to perform empathic tasks as programmed necessarily translate to having real empathy? These issues may need to be investigated before the development of artificial empathy for HCD. ...
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... It is necessary to exhibit a convincing flow of emotions and empathetic behavior for social robots to be accepted as companions by the humans [1,2]. Training a robot to mimic the emotion expressed by the human partner poses the challenge of authenticity; i.e. people can be disturbed by robot companions simply mimicking their emotions without feeling them [3,4]. The implementation of empathetic robot leads to the challenge of authenticity and then implementation of human acceptable empathetic robot issue comes into play [3]. ...
... Training a robot to mimic the emotion expressed by the human partner poses the challenge of authenticity; i.e. people can be disturbed by robot companions simply mimicking their emotions without feeling them [3,4]. The implementation of empathetic robot leads to the challenge of authenticity and then implementation of human acceptable empathetic robot issue comes into play [3]. Various psychological and neurological theories are proposed to explain the (empathic) behavior in humans and attempting to reproduce it in agents in developmental or epigenetic robotics [5,6]. ...
... Note that when empathy increases between the human and the robot, then a social relationship is developed. Developmental robotics [3] compares the robot to a six months old child and considers empathy as an emergent behavior based on four main components: (1) the gut feeling, which senses the body's condition (battery, temperature's sensors, etc.) (2) a module to associate stimuli to feelings, (3) a mirroring system and (4) infant direct baby talk. In this study, we present a prototype of an affective model based on the developmental robotic. ...
... Yet she would be clueless when facing a new situation. This is why researchers in moral robots are currently focusing on "empathic" robots, which are able to learn, rather than robots with moral norms (Asada 2015;lim and okuno 2015;Paiva, leite, Boukricha and Wachsmuth 2017). Focusing on moral development, and in line with what we previously said about the epistemological role of empathy in moral judgments, railton (2016) states that moral learning might require taking others' perspectives through empathy. ...
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In this paper we discuss Prinz’s Kantian arguments in “Is Empathy Necessary for Morality?” (2011). They purport to show that empathy is not necessary for morality because it is not part of the capacities required for moral competence and it can bias moral judgment. First, we show that even conceding Prinz his notions of empathy and moral competence, empathy still plays a role in moral competence. Second, we argue that moral competence is not limited to moral judgment. Third, we reject Prinz’s notion of empathy because it is too restrictive, in requiring emotional matching. We conclude that once morality and empathy are properly understood, empathy’s role in morality is vindicated. Morality is not reduced to a form of rational judgment, but it necessarily presupposes pro-social preferences and motivation and sensitivity to inter-subjective demands.
... Yet she would be clueless when facing a new situation. This is why researchers in moral robots are currently focusing on "empathic" robots, which are able to learn, rather than robots with moral norms (Asada 2015;lim and okuno 2015;Paiva, leite, Boukricha and Wachsmuth 2017). Focusing on moral development, and in line with what we previously said about the epistemological role of empathy in moral judgments, railton (2016) states that moral learning might require taking others' perspectives through empathy. ...
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