Page 206 - Socially Intelligent Agents Creating Relationships with Computers and Robots

Chapter 23

DESIGNING FOR INTERACTION

Creating and Evaluating an Empathic Ambience in Com-
puter Integrated Learning Environments

Bridget Cooper and Paul Brna
Leeds University

Abstract Central to communication and understanding is the quality of empathy, which
enables people to accept, be open to and understand the perspectives of oth-
ers, whilst simultaneously developing their own perspective. Empathy supports
and enables interaction, and creates the climate for both affective and cogni-
tive support. An empathic approach can also be embedded in the design of
computer-based learning environments by involving the users at every stage and
by supporting a variety of natural human interaction. This chapter explains how
this was carried out in a ‘classroom of the future’.

1. Introduction
Central to education are the construction of knowledge and the gaining of
insights from multiple perspectives. Fundamental to both these aims is the
ability to communicate, without which the fusion of widely varying perspec-
tives, which is at the heart of creativity and new understanding cannot even
begin to be realised. Complex communication is the corner stone of what it
is to be human, to envisage, to abstract, to reflect upon and interact with our
environment and its inhabitants. Central to communication and understand-
ing is the quality of empathy, which enables people to accept, be open to and
understand the perspectives of others, whilst simultaneously developing their
own perspective. Empathy supports and enables interaction, and creates the
climate for both affective and cognitive support. An empathic approach can
also be embedded in the design of computer-based learning environments by
involving the users at every stage and by supporting a variety of natural human
interaction. This theoretical understanding underpinned a European project
NIMIS (Networked Interactive Media in Schools) which envisaged a class-