Vocal Synchrony of Robots Boosts Positive Affective Empathy

Robots that can talk with humans play increasingly important roles in society. However, current conversation robots remain unskilled at eliciting empathic feelings in humans. To address this problem, we used a robot that speaks in a voice synchronized with human vocal prosody. We conducted an experiment in which human participants held positive conversations with the robot by reading scenarios under conditions with and without vocal synchronization. We assessed seven subjective responses related to affective empathy (e.g., emotional connection) and measured the physiological emotional responses using facial electromyography from the corrugator supercilii and zygomatic major muscles as well as the skin conductance level. The subjective ratings consistently revealed heightened empathic responses to the robot in the synchronization condition compared with that under the de-synchronizing condition. The physiological signals showed that more positive and stronger emotional arousal responses to the robot with synchronization. These findings suggest that robots that are able to vocally synchronize with humans can elicit empathic emotional responses.

Disorders of Emotional Communication in Traumatic Brain Injury

Traumatic brain injury (TBI) leads to a wide array of behavioral and cognitive deficits. Individuals with TBI often demonstrate difficulties with the recognition and expression of emotion communicated through multiple modalities including facial expression, vocal prosody, and linguistic content. Deficits in emotional communication contribute to a pattern of social pragmatic communication problems, leading to decreased psychosocial function. Growing evidence supports intervention targeting affective processing. This article summarizes the current evidence for evaluation and treatment of affective processing disorders in TBI.