Article

Caring for Agents and Agents that Care: Building Empathic Relations with Synthetic Agents

Authors:

Polly Sobreperez,

Lynne HallAuthors Info & Claims

AAMAS '04: Proceedings of the Third International Joint Conference on Autonomous Agents and Multiagent Systems - Volume 1

Pages 194 - 201

Published: 19 July 2004 Publication History

Abstract

When building agents and synthetic characters, and in order to achieve believability, we must consider the emotional relations established between users and characters, that is, we must consider the issue of "empathy". Defined in broad terms as "An observer reacting emotionally because he perceives that another is experiencing or about to experience an emotion", empathy is an important element to consider in the creation of relations between humans and agents. In this paper we will focus on the role of empathy in the construction of synthetic characters, providing some requirements for such construction and illustrating the presented concepts with a specific system called FearNot!. FearNot! was developed to address the difficult and often devastating problem of bullying in schools. By using role playing and empathic synthetic characters in a 3D environment, FearNot! allows children from 8 to 12 to experience a virtual scenario where they can witness (in a third-person perspective) bullying situations. To build empathy into FearNot! we have considered the following components: agentýs architecture; the charactersý embodiment and emotional expression; proximity with the user and emotionally charged situations.We will describe how these were implemented in FearNot! and report on the preliminary results we have with it.

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Cited By

Sidi-Ali MPapadopoulos GSamaras GWeibelzahl SJannach DSantos O(2019)Adaptive E-LearningProceedings of the 27th ACM Conference on User Modeling, Adaptation and Personalization10.1145/3320435.3323464(341-344)Online publication date: 7-Jun-2019
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3320435.3323464
Cafaro APelachaud CMarsella S(2019)Nonverbal behavior in multimodal performancesThe Handbook of Multimodal-Multisensor Interfaces10.1145/3233795.3233803(219-262)Online publication date: 1-Jul-2019
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3233795.3233803
Richards DBilgin ARanjbartabar HBogdanovych ARichards DSimoff SPelachaud CHeylen DTrescak T(2018)Users' perceptions of empathic dialogue cuesProceedings of the 18th International Conference on Intelligent Virtual Agents10.1145/3267851.3267857(35-42)Online publication date: 5-Nov-2018
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3267851.3267857
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Index Terms

Caring for Agents and Agents that Care: Building Empathic Relations with Synthetic Agents
1. Applied computing
  1. Law, social and behavioral sciences
    1. Psychology
2. Computing methodologies
  1. Artificial intelligence
    1. Distributed artificial intelligence
      1. Multi-agent systems

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cover image ACM Conferences

AAMAS '04: Proceedings of the Third International Joint Conference on Autonomous Agents and Multiagent Systems - Volume 1

July 2004

494 pages

ISBN:1581138644

Sponsors

SIGAI: ACM Special Interest Group on Artificial Intelligence

Publisher

IEEE Computer Society

United States

Publication History

Published: 19 July 2004

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AAMAS04

Sponsor:

SIGAI

AAMAS04: The Third International Joint Conference on Autonomous Agents and Multi-Agent Systems 2004

July 19 - 23, 2004

New York, New York

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Overall Acceptance Rate 1,155 of 5,036 submissions, 23%

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Cited By

Sidi-Ali MPapadopoulos GSamaras GWeibelzahl SJannach DSantos O(2019)Adaptive E-LearningProceedings of the 27th ACM Conference on User Modeling, Adaptation and Personalization10.1145/3320435.3323464(341-344)Online publication date: 7-Jun-2019
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3320435.3323464
Cafaro APelachaud CMarsella S(2019)Nonverbal behavior in multimodal performancesThe Handbook of Multimodal-Multisensor Interfaces10.1145/3233795.3233803(219-262)Online publication date: 1-Jul-2019
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3233795.3233803
Richards DBilgin ARanjbartabar HBogdanovych ARichards DSimoff SPelachaud CHeylen DTrescak T(2018)Users' perceptions of empathic dialogue cuesProceedings of the 18th International Conference on Intelligent Virtual Agents10.1145/3267851.3267857(35-42)Online publication date: 5-Nov-2018
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3267851.3267857
Moosaei MDas SPopa DRiek LMutlu BTscheligi MWeiss AYoung J(2017)Using Facially Expressive Robots to Calibrate Clinical Pain PerceptionProceedings of the 2017 ACM/IEEE International Conference on Human-Robot Interaction10.1145/2909824.3020216(32-41)Online publication date: 6-Mar-2017
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/2909824.3020216
Sebastian JRichards D(2017)Changing stigmatizing attitudes to mental health via education and contact with embodied conversational agentsComputers in Human Behavior10.1016/j.chb.2017.03.07173:C(479-488)Online publication date: 1-Aug-2017
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1016/j.chb.2017.03.071
De Carolis BFerilli SPalestra G(2017)Simulating empathic behavior in a social assistive robotMultimedia Tools and Applications10.1007/s11042-016-3797-076:4(5073-5094)Online publication date: 1-Feb-2017
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1007/s11042-016-3797-0
Si M(2015)Should i stop thinking about itAdvances in Human-Computer Interaction10.1155/2015/8567262015(5-5)Online publication date: 1-Jan-2015
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1155/2015/856726
De Carolis BFerilli SPalestra GCarofiglio VBottoni PCatarci TDe Marsico MFogli D(2015)Modeling and Simulating Empathic Behavior in Social Assistive RobotsProceedings of the 11th Biannual Conference of the Italian SIGCHI Chapter10.1145/2808435.2808445(110-117)Online publication date: 28-Sep-2015
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/2808435.2808445
Si MMarsella S(2014)Encoding theory of mind in character design for pedagogical interactive narrativeAdvances in Human-Computer Interaction10.1155/2014/3869282014(10-10)Online publication date: 1-Jan-2014
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1155/2014/386928
Anderson KAndré EBaur TBernardini SChollet MChryssafidou EDamian IEnnis CEgges AGebhard PJones HOchs MPelachaud CPorayska-Pomsta KRizzo PSabouret N(2013)The TARDIS FrameworkProceedings of the 10th International Conference on Advances in Computer Entertainment - Volume 825310.5555/2770015.2770053(476-491)Online publication date: 12-Nov-2013
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