Development of artificial empathy

Abstract

We have been advocating cognitive developmental robotics to obtain new insight into the development of human cognitive functions by utilizing synthetic and constructive approaches. Among the different emotional functions, empathy is difficult to model, but essential for robots to be social agents in our society. In my previous review on artificial empathy (Asada, 2014b), I proposed a conceptual model for empathy development beginning with emotional contagion to envy/schadenfreude along with self/other differentiation. In this article, the focus is on two aspects of this developmental process, emotional contagion in relation to motor mimicry, and cognitive/affective aspects of the empathy. It begins with a summary of the previous review (Asada, 2014b) and an introduction to affective developmental robotics as a part of cognitive developmental robotics focusing on the affective aspects. This is followed by a review and discussion on several approaches for two focused aspects of affective developmental robotics. Finally, future issues involved in the development of a more authentic form of artificial empathy are discussed.

Keywords: Artificial empathy; Cognitive/affective empathy; Emotional contagion; Motor mimicry.