Accepted for/Published in: JMIR Formative Research
Date Submitted: Nov 27, 2024
Open Peer Review Period: Nov 28, 2024 - Jan 20, 2025
Date Accepted: Mar 2, 2025
(closed for review but you can still tweet)
Warning: This is an author submission that is not peer-reviewed or edited. Preprints - unless they show as "accepted" - should not be relied on to guide clinical practice or health-related behavior and should not be reported in news media as established information.
The Impact of Voice on Perceptions of Empathy: An Experimental Study Using Conversational Agent Prototypes in the Context of Mental Healthcare.
ABSTRACT
Background:
Empathy is a critical component of effective mental health care communication. Positive perceptions of empathy in conversational agents (CAs) operating in the healthcare domain are needed to enhance the quality of care provided by these emerging technologies.
Objective:
This study investigates how demographic characteristics of individual users affect their perception of empathy in a mental health helpline service context. The impact of vocal cues engineered within nine CA prototypes is the focus of this study.
Methods:
A group of psychology students (n=306) were presented with several CA prototypes, and their perceptions of empathy were evaluated via an online survey. Perceptions of empathy were rated using the Perceived Emotional Intelligence (PEI) Scale and the Rater Scale (RS10).
Results:
A linear mixed model for PEI showed significantly higher ratings for high than low engineered empathy levels (t(8)=-2.34, p=0.048), and for participants of Asian and the Other category rather than Oceanic ethnicities (t(285)=2.54, p=0.01 and t(286)=2.25, p=0.03 respectively). RS10 ratings were also significantly higher for high rather than low engineered empathy levels (t(8)=-2.45, p=0.04) and for participants of the Other category rather than Oceanic ethnicities (t(284)=2.24, p=0.03). Women also showed significantly higher RS10 ratings than men (t(283) =1.94, p=0.05).
Conclusions:
Recognising empathy levels in CA prototypes proved challenging, highlighting possible complexities involved with voice-based empathy detection. The perception of empathy may also be affected by different ethnic and gender-based factors. The study findings emphasise the importance of personalised empathic communication by CAs with users based on their ethnicity and gender in the context of mental health helpline service provision
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