Suzuki Yutaka, Galli Lisa, Ikeda Ayaka, Itakura Shoji, Kitazaki Michiteru
Department of Computer Science and Engineering, Toyohashi University of Technology, Toyohashi, Japan.
Freie Universitaet Berlin, Berlin, Germany.
Sci Rep. 2015 Nov 3;5:15924. doi: 10.1038/srep15924.
This study provides the first physiological evidence of humans' ability to empathize with robot pain and highlights the difference in empathy for humans and robots. We performed electroencephalography in 15 healthy adults who observed either human- or robot-hand pictures in painful or non-painful situations such as a finger cut by a knife. We found that the descending phase of the P3 component was larger for the painful stimuli than the non-painful stimuli, regardless of whether the hand belonged to a human or robot. In contrast, the ascending phase of the P3 component at the frontal-central electrodes was increased by painful human stimuli but not painful robot stimuli, though the interaction of ANOVA was not significant, but marginal. These results suggest that we empathize with humanoid robots in late top-down processing similarly to human others. However, the beginning of the top-down process of empathy is weaker for robots than for humans.
本研究提供了人类能够对机器人疼痛产生共情的首个生理学证据，并突出了对人类和机器人共情的差异。我们对15名健康成年人进行了脑电图检查，他们在诸如手指被刀割伤等疼痛或非疼痛情境下观察人类手部或机器人手部图片。我们发现，无论手部属于人类还是机器人，P3成分的下降阶段在疼痛刺激下比非疼痛刺激下更大。相比之下，额中央电极处P3成分的上升阶段在人类疼痛刺激下增加，但在机器人疼痛刺激下未增加，尽管方差分析的交互作用不显著，但接近显著。这些结果表明，在后期自上而下的加工过程中，我们对类人机器人的共情与对其他人的共情类似。然而，机器人共情的自上而下过程的起始阶段比对人类的要弱。
