Exploring Empathy with Digital Humans

Digital humans are autonomously-animated virtual people whose social interactions are driven by artificial intelligence. They are increasingly being deployed in applications such as healthcare, customer service, and education, and they may have a place in the metaverse. For digital humans to have effective social relationships with users, it is important that they are capable of empathetic interactions. This research aims to evaluate and build upon the autonomous empathy system of a digital human through five experimental studies. Psychological and physiological data will be collected, and the effects will be compared in an Augmented Reality environment and cross-culturally. This paper presents the research agenda, and discusses considerations and challenges for empathetic interactions with digital humans.