Techno-empathy: Iterative Emotion Visualization

Techno-empathy is an interactive art experience that iteratively visualizes the emotions and perceptions of multiple participants in real time and present them as generative visuals. This research-based artwork develops a workflow using heart rate as a physiological signal, including multi-participant’s emotional perception and reaction to visual stimulus, to explore an iterative emotion visualization as a technology-mediated empathy, i.e., techno-empathy. Real-time Heart rate (HR) data from participants were mapped to dynamic visuals, creating an interactive and generative work that fosters emotional perception and empathy in multi-user collaborations. A crossover experiment with four participants showed that the proposed workflow implemented in the artwork enhanced emotional contagion, scoring high in visibility, engagement, and rationality, though improvements are needed in concentration and autonomy. Contributions include the development of a Heart Rate-based emotion visualization workflow (i.e., techno-empathy, a real-time iterative mapping from multi-participant’s biodata to visual art) and implemented it as an interactive artwork, as well as validation of the proposed approach. This study broadens emotion visualization applications in Affective Computing and offers new insights into multi-user emotional interactions.