Abstract
“Empathy” and “Sympathy” are often confusingly used. Beside the difference in their usage, the key component could be a sort of emotional state to be shared, and the way to represent or manipulate it might be different. This could be clearer when we attempt to design it for artificial agents. This paper argues what are differences between empathy and sympathy, and how to design each of them for an artificial agent. First, the dictionary meaning of both is reviewed, and a metaphor to intuitively explain the difference is introduced. Next, we argue how artificial empathy and artificial sympathy can be designed, and a cognitive developmental robotics is introduced as a promising approach to the latter, especially from a viewpoint of learning and development. A rough design for artificial sympathy is argued, and preliminary studies needed to build the artificial sympathy are introduced. Finally, future issues are given.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution.
Buying options
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Learn about institutional subscriptionsPreview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
References
Amodio, D.M., Frith, C.D.: Meeting of minds: the medial frontal cortex and social cognition. Nat. Rev. Neurosci. 7, 268–277 (2006)
Asada, M., Hosoda, K., Kuniyoshi, Y., Ishiguro, H., Inui, T., Yoshikawa, Y., Ogino, M., Yoshida, C.: Cognitive developmental robotics: a survey. IEEE Transactions on Autonomous Mental Development 1(1), 12–34 (2009)
Gergely, G., Watson, J.S.: Early socio-emotional development: Contingency perception adn the social-biofeedback model. In: Rochat, P. (ed.) Early Social Cognition: Understanding Others in the First Months of Life, pp. 101–136. Lawrence Erlbaum, Mahwah (1999)
Hickok, G.: Eight problems for the mirror neuron theory of action understanding in monkeys and humans. Joural of Cognitive Neuroscience 21, 1229–1243 (2009)
Hisashi, I., Yoshikawa, Y., Miura, K., Asada, M.: Caregiver’s sensorimotor magnets guide infant’s vowels through auto mirroring. In: The 7th International Conference on Development and Learning (ICDL 2008), CD–ROM (2008)
Ishihara, H., Yoshikawa, Y., Asada, M.: Realistic child robot ”affetto” for understanding the caregiver-child attachment relationship that guides the child development. In: IEEE International Conference on Development and Learning, and Epigenetic Robotics (ICDL-EpiRob 2011), CD–ROM (2011)
Kuhl, P., Andruski, J., Chistovich, I., Chistovich, L., Kozhevnikova, E., Ryskina, V., Stolyarova, E., Sundberg, U., Lacerda, F.: Cross-language analysis of phonetic units in language addressed to infants. Science 277, 684–686 (1997)
Miwa, H., Itoh, K., Matsumoto, M., Zecca, M., Takanobu, H., Roccella, S., Carrozza, M.C., Dario, P., Takanishi, A.: Effective emotional expressions with emotion expression humanoid robot we-4rii. In: Proceeding of the 2004 IEEE/RSJ Intl. Conference on Intelligent Robot and Systems, pp. 2203–2208 (2004)
Miwa, H., Okuchi, T., Itoh, K., Takanobu, H., Takanishi, A.: A new mental model for humanoid robts for humanfriendly communication-introduction of learning system, mood vector and second order equations of emotion. In: Proceeding of the 2003 IEEE International Conference on Robotics & Automation, pp. 3588–3593 (2003)
Nagai, Y., Rohlfing, K.J.: Computational analysis of motionese toward scaffolding robot action learning. IEEE Transactions on Autonomous Mental Development 1(1), 44–54 (2009)
Nagai, Y., Kawai, Y., Asada, M.: Emergence of mirror neuron system: Immature vision leads to self-other correspondence. In: IEEE International Conference on Development and Learning, and Epigenetic Robotics (ICDL-EpiRob 2011), CD–ROM (2011)
Ogata, T., Sugano, S.: Emotional communication between humans and the autonomous robot wamoeba-2 (waseda amoeba) which has the emotion model. JSME International Journal, Series C: Mechanical Systems Machine Elements and Manufacturing 43(3), 568–574 (2000)
Russell, J.A.: A circumplex model of affect. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 39, 1161–1178 (1980)
Sumioka, H., Yoshikawa, Y., Asada, M.: Causality detected by transfer entropy leads acquisition of joint attention. Journal of Robotics and Mechatronics 20(3), 378–385 (2008)
Sumioka, H., Yoshikawa, Y., Asada, M.: Development of joint attention related actions based on reproducing interaction causality. In: The 7th International Conference on Development and Learning (ICDL 2008), CD–ROM (2008)
Watanabe, A., Ogino, M., Asada, M.: Mapping facial expression to internal states based on intuitive parenting. Journal of Robotics and Mechatronics 19(3), 315–323 (2007)
Yoshikawa, Y., Asada, M., Hosoda, K., Koga, J.: A constructivist approach to infants’ vowel acquisition through mother-infant interaction. Connection Science 15(4), 245–258 (2003)
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2012 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg
About this paper
Cite this paper
Asada, M., Nagai, Y., Ishihara, H. (2012). Why Not Artificial Sympathy?. In: Ge, S.S., Khatib, O., Cabibihan, JJ., Simmons, R., Williams, MA. (eds) Social Robotics. ICSR 2012. Lecture Notes in Computer Science(), vol 7621. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-34103-8_28
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-34103-8_28
Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg
Print ISBN: 978-3-642-34102-1
Online ISBN: 978-3-642-34103-8
eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)