Quantifying Empathy in Virtual Reality

Abstract

We propose a multidimensional model in virtual reality (VR) based intervention to quantify empathy enhancement and promotion of prosocial behavior. A simulation in virtual reality is developed, which can be used as a form of behavioral therapy, thereby facilitating the study of the impact of VR on quantifying empathy. This research investigates which type of virtual reality based intervention has the maximum efficacy in evoking empathy and other allied prosocial behavior. The framework is divided into three niches. The first niche is User-Avatar merging wherein the respondent takes the first person perspective (1PP) of being homeless in an immersive interactive virtual environment. The second is passive interaction wherein the respondent is immersed in a virtual environment and is exposed to simulation but with no interaction. This is done by transposing the viewpoint in third person perspective (3PP), and the third is baseline study group where no virtual reality based intervention was provided. The empirical evidence indicates that there is a significant impact of immersion on empathy and prosocial behavior, and user-avatar merging is the most effective type of VR based immersive intervention to evoke empathy