Witchel_ECCE_2016_complex_empathy_vs_engagement_14june2016.pdf (297.57 kB)
The complex relationship between empathy, engagement and boredom
conference contribution
posted on 2023-06-09, 05:19 authored by Harry WitchelHarry Witchel, Carlos P Santos, James K Ackah, Julian Tee, Nachiappan Chockalingam, Carina E I WestlingIn human computer interactions — especially gaming — the role of empathy has been mooted as a necessary prerequisite for higher levels of engagement and immersion. More recently other forms of engagement, including intellectual/cognitive engagement, have been proposed. In this study we present a carefully controlled dataset of human-computer interactions with a wide range of stimuli that ranged from highly engaging to boring to test these two theories. Analyzing 844 response sets to visual analogue scales (VAS) for empathy, interest, boredom, and engagement, we found that high empathy was sufficient for high engagement but is not necessary, whilst the converse was not true. We also found that empathy and boredom were incompatible with each other, but low levels of either were permissive rather than causal to the other. We conclude that there is no monotonic relationship between increasing empathy and engagement; either empathy is a sufficient (but not necessary) cause of engagement, or engagement is a necessary precursor to high empathy.
History
Publication status
- Published
File Version
- Accepted version
Journal
Proceedings of the European Conference on Cognitive Ergonomics (ECCE '16); Nottingham, UK; 6-8 September 2016Publisher
Association for Computing MachineryExternal DOI
Article number
a4Event type
conferenceISBN
9781450342445Department affiliated with
- BSMS Neuroscience Publications
Full text available
- Yes
Peer reviewed?
- Yes
Legacy Posted Date
2017-03-08First Open Access (FOA) Date
2017-07-18First Compliant Deposit (FCD) Date
2017-03-08Usage metrics
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