'Virtual Partner' Elicits Emotional Responses From a Human Partner in Real-Time
Tuesday, May 17, 2016 - 08:50
in Psychology & Sociology
"How does it 'feel' to interact behaviorally with a machine?" To answer that, scientists created a virtual partner that can elicit emotional responses from its human partner while the pair engages in behavioral coordination in real-time. The virtual partner's behavior is governed by mathematical models of human-to-human interactions in a way that enables humans to interact with the mathematical description of their social selves. Humans showed greater emotional arousal when they thought the virtual partner was a human and not a machine, although in all cases, they were interacting with a machine.