Using Facial Expressiveness of a Virtual Agent to Induce Empathy in Users

ABSTRACT

Healthcare simulators are learning environments that offer many training opportunities. The integration of expressive virtual patients in these simulators encourages the exchanges and provokes emotional reactions in the learner, which promotes memorization and learning. Based on these elements, we assume that the facial expressiveness of a virtual agent is a factor to be considered in order to improve the user experience. We investigate the impact of the facial expressiveness of virtual humans on the empathy induction in the user of health simulators. We also investigate the impact of facial expressiveness on the user’s sense of similarity and the affective bond with the agent. Our results show a high empathy score when users train with simulators. Depending on the context, we observe a significant difference in perspective-taking in favor of the users who interact with an expressive virtual agent to a virtual agent without facial expressiveness.

Acknowledgments

We would like to thank our laboratory and its team for their advice and valuable suggestions throughout our work. We would also like to thank the participants and the Nursing Institutes for their interest and availability. We extend our thanks to SimforHealth for funding this research.

Notes

1. www.affectiva.com/

2. The ”room of errors” is a health simulation tool, allowing participants to practice by visualizing and identifying errors deliberately inserted in a care scene.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Anne-Sophie Milcent

Anne-Sophie Milcent, Her research work focuses on expressive virtual agents and their impact on the user experience, with an application to the field of medical education.

Abdelmajid Kadri

Abdelmajid Kadri, His research work focuses on the contributions of virtual technologies (VR, AR, …) in different application domains, particularly in product design to respond to the needs of design assistance, as well as in health (awareness and rehabilitation).

Simon Richir

Simon Richir, He is the head of “Laval Arts et Metiers Institute” and “Presence innovation” research team (LAMPA Lab). His research and teaching activities concentrate on technological innovation, engineering design process, ideation, innovative projects, and innovative uses of new advanced technologies such as Virtual Reality or Augmented Reality.