Empathic and Empathetic Systematic Review to Standardize the Development of Reliable and Sustainable Empathic Systems

Abstract

Empathy plays a crucial role in human life, and the evolution of technology is affecting the way humans interact with machines. The area of affective computing is attracting considerable interest within the human–computer interaction community. However, the area of empathic interactions has not been explored in depth. This systematic review explores the latest advances in empathic interactions and behaviour. We provide key insights into the exploration, design, implementation, and evaluation of empathic interactions. Data were collected from the CHI conference between 2011 and 2021 to provide an overview of all studies covering empathic and empathetic interactions. Two authors screened and extracted data from a total of 59 articles relevant to this review. The features extracted cover interaction modalities, context understanding, usage fields, goals, and evaluation. The results reported here can be used as a foundation for the future research and development of empathic systems and interfaces and as a starting point for the gaps found.