An Interactional Account of Empathy in Human-Machine Communication
Efforts to develop empathetic agents, or systems capable of responding appropriately to emotional content, have increased as the deployment of such systems in socially complex scenarios becomes more commonplace. In the context of human-machine communication (HMC), the ability to create the perceptio...
| Main Authors: | , , |
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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Communication and Social Robotics Labs
2023-07-01
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| Series: | Human-Machine Communication Journal |
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| _version_ | 1797778441236381696 |
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| author | Shauna Concannon Ian Roberts Marcus Tomalin |
| author_facet | Shauna Concannon Ian Roberts Marcus Tomalin |
| author_sort | Shauna Concannon |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | Efforts to develop empathetic agents, or systems capable of responding appropriately to emotional content, have increased as the deployment of such systems in socially complex scenarios becomes more commonplace. In the context of human-machine communication (HMC), the ability to create the perception of empathy is achieved in large part through linguistic behavior. However, studies of how language is used to display and respond to emotion in ways deemed empathetic are limited. This article aims to address this gap, demonstrating how an interactional linguistics informed methodological approach can be applied to the study of empathy in HMC. We present an analysis of empathetic response strategies in HMC and examine how these diverge from the practices employed in human-human dialogue. The specific challenges encountered by current systems are reviewed and their implications for future work on HMC considered. |
| first_indexed | 2024-03-12T23:18:19Z |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj.art-6cbc4d32796f4ecf96af5dfec1296187 |
| institution | Directory Open Access Journal |
| issn | 2638-602X 2638-6038 |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-03-12T23:18:19Z |
| publishDate | 2023-07-01 |
| publisher | Communication and Social Robotics Labs |
| record_format | Article |
| series | Human-Machine Communication Journal |
| spelling | doaj.art-6cbc4d32796f4ecf96af5dfec12961872023-07-16T21:01:37ZengCommunication and Social Robotics LabsHuman-Machine Communication Journal2638-602X2638-60382023-07-0168711610.30658/hmc.6.6An Interactional Account of Empathy in Human-Machine CommunicationShauna Concannon0https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5904-0045Ian Roberts1https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7974-2506Marcus Tomalin2https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6723-6075University of CambridgeUniversity of CambridgeUniversity of CambridgeEfforts to develop empathetic agents, or systems capable of responding appropriately to emotional content, have increased as the deployment of such systems in socially complex scenarios becomes more commonplace. In the context of human-machine communication (HMC), the ability to create the perception of empathy is achieved in large part through linguistic behavior. However, studies of how language is used to display and respond to emotion in ways deemed empathetic are limited. This article aims to address this gap, demonstrating how an interactional linguistics informed methodological approach can be applied to the study of empathy in HMC. We present an analysis of empathetic response strategies in HMC and examine how these diverge from the practices employed in human-human dialogue. The specific challenges encountered by current systems are reviewed and their implications for future work on HMC considered.conversational agentsemotionempathyhuman-machine communicationinteractional analysis |
| spellingShingle | Shauna Concannon Ian Roberts Marcus Tomalin An Interactional Account of Empathy in Human-Machine Communication Human-Machine Communication Journal conversational agents emotion empathy human-machine communication interactional analysis |
| title | An Interactional Account of Empathy in Human-Machine Communication |
| title_full | An Interactional Account of Empathy in Human-Machine Communication |
| title_fullStr | An Interactional Account of Empathy in Human-Machine Communication |
| title_full_unstemmed | An Interactional Account of Empathy in Human-Machine Communication |
| title_short | An Interactional Account of Empathy in Human-Machine Communication |
| title_sort | interactional account of empathy in human machine communication |
| topic | conversational agents emotion empathy human-machine communication interactional analysis |
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