Article: How We Can Become More Empathetic with Technology

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"I've learned that people will forget what you said. People will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel."

-Maya Angelou

Machines may one day help us become more empathetic. Empathy involves sensing other people's emotions and imagining what they might be feeling or thinking. Current research indicates that developing empathy begins very early in infants. In the first months of life, human babies begin to mirror the emotions of others around them. A baby will smile when smiled at and look sad when presented with a sad face. This ability to detect and feel the emotions of people around them will continue to develop over the years through adolescence into adulthood. According to recent studies, teenage girls build "cognitive empathy," or the ability to take other people's perspectives at age 13. Meanwhile, boys tend not to begin to develop cognitive empathy until age fifteen. (wsj.com) Cognitive empathy is not just a nice-to-have ability. It plays a crucial role in problem-solving and conflict avoidance.

Many stories, dramas, and comedies hinge on a breakthrough in empathy to evolve the main character. For example, the 2003 movie Freaky Friday involves a magical body swap between the therapist mom, Tess, played by Jamie Lee Curtis, and her teenage daughter, Anna, played by Lindsey Lohan. Before the body swap facilitated by a pair of magical fortune cookies, the mother and daughter have issues understanding each other's struggles. However, by literally walking in the other's shoes, they come to understand the difficulties in each other's lives, leading to positive changes once they switch back.

Recent advances in hardware and software have facilitated a new type of experience called Immersive Virtual Environment Technology (IVET). Using an array of sensor technologies, including cameras for vision, position sensors, microphones, and biometric sensors such as heart rate and temperature, IVET recreates someone's experience for another to witness in virtual reality. Researchers at Stanford University, the University of Georgia, and Metaio Inc in San Francisco have used IVET in a series of experiments to see if these embodied experiences can improve empathy for those living with disabilities. (Media Psychology) In their work titled "The Affect of Embodied Experiences on Self-Other Merging, Attitude, and Helping Behavior," the authors used IVET to have a portion of the test subjects have an immersive experience of life living with red-green color blindness. On the other hand, the control group experienced the virtual world with a full array of colors but were told to imagine what it would be like to have red-green color blindness. The experiment revealed that those who "lived" the experience of seeing the virtual world with red-green color blindness demonstrated more significant concern for those with color blindness after the experiment. Additionally, they were twice as likely to volunteer time to help color-blind people match color blocks in the virtual world. They also observed that the more realistic the IVET experience, the more empathetic the response.

Empathy starts developing very early in life for humans and continues to evolve through adolescence. It forms a core component of our interactions as social animals. Empathy helps people to reduce stereotyping, improve learning, and to help in problem-solving. Many stories use a moment of empathetic insight as a turning point in a character's development. Body-switching movies such as Freaky Friday have literal switches that help the characters see the world through the eyes of another, which leads to a better understanding of another's struggles. In real life, people must use their imaginations to walk in someone else's shoes. However, researchers have begun experimenting with a new array of technologies called Virtual Environment Technology (IVET) to help others virtually see the world through the eyes of another. In a recent experiment, researchers demonstrated the IVET helps test subjects to better empathize with those that live with color blindness than just trying to imagine what it would be like to live life with that disability. The researchers also found that the more authentic the experience feels, the stronger the empathic response. IVET may offer a new way to improve empathy and help us better understand our fellow people.

Dr. Smith’s career in scientific and information research spans the areas of bioinformatics, artificial intelligence, toxicology, and chemistry. He has published a number of peer-reviewed scientific papers. He has worked over the past seventeen years developing advanced analytics, machine learning, and knowledge management tools to enable research and support high-level decision making. Tim completed his Ph.D. in Toxicology at Cornell University and a Bachelor of Science in chemistry from the University of Washington.

You can buy his book on Amazon in paperback and in kindle format here.