Department of Applied Artificial Intelligence, Seoul National University of Science and Technology, 232 Gongneung-ro, Gongneung-dong, Nowon-gu, Seoul, 01811, Korea.
Department of Computer Science, Electrical Engineering and Mechatronics, ZHAW Zurich University of Applied Sciences, Winterthur, Switzerland.
Sci Rep. 2024 Jan 4;14(1):506. doi: 10.1038/s41598-023-51115-y.
An effective way to reduce emotional distress is by sharing negative emotions with others. This is why counseling with a virtual counselor is an emerging methodology, where the sharer can consult freely anytime and anywhere without having to fear being judged. To improve counseling effectiveness, most studies so far have focused on designing verbal compassion for virtual counselors. However, recent studies showed that virtual counselors' nonverbal compassion through eye contact, facial mimicry, and head-nodding also have significant impact on the overall counseling experience. To verify this, we designed the virtual counselor's nonverbal compassion and examined its effects on counseling effectiveness (i.e., reduce the intensity of anger and improve general affect). A total of 40 participants were recruited from the university community. Participants were then randomly assigned to one of two virtual counselor conditions: a neutral virtual counselor condition without nonverbal compassion and a compassionate virtual counselor condition with nonverbal compassion (i.e., eye contact, facial mimicry, and head-nodding). Participants shared their anger-inducing episodes with the virtual counselor for an average of 16.30 min. Note that the virtual counselor was operated by the Wizard-of-Oz method without actually being technically implemented. Results showed that counseling with a compassionate virtual counselor reduced the intensity of anger significantly more than counseling with a neutral virtual counselor (F(1, 37) = 30.822, p < 0.001, η = 0.454). In addition, participants who counseled with a compassionate virtual counselor responded that they experienced higher empathy than those who counseled with a neutral virtual counselor (p < 0.001). These findings suggest that nonverbal compassion through eye contact, facial mimicry, and head-nodding of the virtual counselor makes the participants feel more empathy, which contributes to improving the counseling effectiveness by reducing the intensity of anger.
一种减轻情绪困扰的有效方法是与他人分享负面情绪。这就是为什么与虚拟辅导员进行咨询是一种新兴的方法，分享者可以随时随地自由咨询，而不必担心被评判。为了提高咨询效果，迄今为止的大多数研究都集中在设计虚拟辅导员的言语同情上。然而，最近的研究表明，虚拟辅导员通过眼神交流、面部模仿和点头的非言语同情也对整体咨询体验有重大影响。为了验证这一点，我们设计了虚拟辅导员的非言语同情，并检验了它对咨询效果的影响（即，降低愤怒强度和改善一般情绪）。总共从大学社区招募了 40 名参与者。然后，参与者被随机分配到两个虚拟辅导员条件之一：没有非言语同情的中性虚拟辅导员条件和具有非言语同情（即眼神交流、面部模仿和点头）的同情虚拟辅导员条件。参与者平均与虚拟辅导员分享了 16.30 分钟的愤怒事件。请注意，虚拟辅导员是通过奥兹巫师方法操作的，而实际上并没有真正进行技术实现。结果表明，与富有同情心的虚拟辅导员进行咨询可以显著降低愤怒强度，而与中性虚拟辅导员进行咨询（F(1, 37) = 30.822，p < 0.001，η = 0.454）。此外，与富有同情心的虚拟辅导员进行咨询的参与者表示，他们比与中性虚拟辅导员进行咨询的参与者体验到更高的同理心（p < 0.001）。这些发现表明，虚拟辅导员的眼神交流、面部模仿和点头等非言语同情使参与者感到更有同理心，这有助于通过降低愤怒强度来提高咨询效果。
