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Measuring cognitive and affective empathyDataset construction and analysis for both empathy types 
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Empathy involves both cognitive empathy, understanding another person’s feelings, and affective empathy, physically resonating with them, yet their relationship remains poorly understood because datasets capturing both are scarce. In this study, we simultaneously measured subjective ratings of emotional intensity and physiological responses such as heart rate from both senders and receivers, and analyzed their links. To enable this, we built a unique multimodal dataset containing time-series ratings and physiological signals from both actors and observers. Our analyses showed that receivers with a stronger perspective-taking tendency understood emotions more accurately, while their physiological responses were less likely to synchronize with those of the sender; this pattern also varied by emotion type. By separately measuring these two forms of empathy, this work could support dialogue assistance, remote stress-sign detection, and burnout support.
[1] A. Ota, S. Kumano, A. Murata, A. Nakane, S. Shimizu, “EMPAC: A Multimodal Dataset for Bridging Affective and Cognitive Empathy,” Frontiers in Psychology (under review), bioRxiv.
[2] A. Ota, H. Kuze, A. Nakane, S. Kumano, A. Murata, S. Shimizu, “Evaluating Empathy from Cognitive and Affective Perspectives Using Empathic Video Stimuli,” The Institute of Electronics, Information and Communication Engineers HCG Symposium 2024, 2024.
Airi Ota, Digital Twin Computing Laboratory, Human Informatics Laboratories, and Shiro Kumano, Sensory Resonance Research Group, Human Information Science Laboratory