Empathetic Communication in Socially Assistive Robots Based on Perceived Nonverbal Cues from an Individual

How Socially Assistive Robots use Empathy to Communicate Through the Use of Nonverbal Cues

Abstract

Empathy is a topic not often thought about when talking about robotics. However, many scientists who study Human Robot Interactions (HRIs) take empathy into consideration through their studies. Empathy is the ability to understand and share the point of view of another. Socially Assistive Robots (SARs), especially ones designed for therapeutic uses, have to show signs of empathy in order to communicate well with people and build trust within an individual. At a high level, a socially assistive robot can get an input from a human either verbally or nonverbally and then process it to create an output action. For this paper, we are focusing on the nonverbal inputs and how a robot perceives those cues and communicates with an individual all while showing empathy.