What works to make you feel it’s like the real thing………?

- The Origin of Empathytheoretical part

- Iconicity and Abstractionwhat kind of information, in what form

- Immersion how much information

- Pictures vs. Text

•Robert Vischer (1873): ‘Einfühlung’ (in relation to art)

•Theodor Lipps (1903): ‘Einfühlung’ (interpersonal understanding)

•Titchener (1908): translation to ‘empathy’

•Marc Jeannerod (March 2005):

“The concept of empathy implies that individuals involved in a given interaction share a similar mental state. Empathy requires that one has information on the experience and intentions of the person who is observed and whose mental content one is attempting to understand.”

The Origin of Empathy

•Carol Toris (1994):“Empathy remains a concept whose definition lacks consensus.”

•Empathy as a decoding process: focus on the recipient of a communicated message (thing)

–cognitive (perception, understanding) > empathy–affective (emotional reactions) > sympathy

Wispe (1986):“Briefly, sympathy refers to the heightened awareness of another's plight as something to be alleviated. Empathy refers to the attempt of one self-aware self to understand the subjective experiences of another self. Sympathy is a way of relating. Empathy is a way of knowing” (p. 314).

The Origin of Empathy

•Empathy as a encoding process: focus on the creation of the message by a sender (thing)

Truax and Carkhuff (1967):"Accurate empathy involves both the therapist's sensitivity to current feelings and his verbal facility to communicate this understanding in a language attuned to the client's current feelings" (p. 46).

•Empathy as an interactive process: communicative framework (thing)

Hogan (1975):“The empathetic actor (the encoder), and the empathetic audience person, (the decoder)." (p. 15).

The Origin of Empathy

• A negotiation model of empathy: a process of successful negotiation of communicative goals and needs (process).

Carol Toris (1994):“Empathy exists neither in the head of the sender nor the

receiver, but in the emerging interaction that takes place between them.”

The Origin of Empathy

Real life

Realistic

Photograph

Idealised

Photograph

Icon

Iconicity and Abstraction

Real life

Realistic

Photograph

Idealised

Photograph

Icon

Iconicity and Abstraction

going

A photo novel goes towards idealised…

Stock photos, like these from Gettyimages, are very idealised and feel fake

Cosmetics commercials offer the same idealised, ‘fake’ look

However…

Dove takes a different approach; ‘Time for real beauty’,

And almost takes us back to the centre of realistic photography

Real life

Realistic

Photograph

Idealised

Photograph

Icon

Iconicity and Abstraction

Real life

Realistic

Photograph

Idealised

Photograph

Icon

Iconicity and Abstraction

Realistic

PhotographIcon

Iconicity and Abstraction

As you move from realism to iconicity, you go from feeling you’re seeing someone else, to seeing yourself

Iconicity and Abstraction

What does this mean for design visualisation?

• The designer shouldn’t feel like he becomes the persona

• The level of iconicity has to be ‘just right’

• And it can vary between different actors in a scenario

Immersion

What do you think happened?

This happened

…..And this happened…..

…..And this happened…..

………….do you still think it’s interesting?

immersion

immersionUnder taxed

People get apathetic/bored

Over taxed

People get stressed/frustrated

Lose sense of real world.

Intense feeling of joy & satisfaction

Search a balance, think of immersion level of receiver and what kind of abstraction level

should be used

Pictures vs. Text

Jean-Marc Fellous, & Michael A. Arbib (eds.)Who needs emotions?CH6: How do we decipher others’ minds? by Marc Jeannerod p.154-156CH12: Beware of the passionate robot. by Michael A. Arbib p.368-370

Gustav JahodaTheodor Lipps and the sift from ‘sympathy’ to ‘empathy’Journal of the History of the Behavorial Sciences 41(2), p.151-163. Spring 2005

Carol TorisA Negotiation Model of Empathy9th International Balint Federation Congress, 1994.

Empathy test by Simon Baron-Cohen:http://www.guardian.co.uk/life/news/page/0,12983,937443,00.html

Scott McLoudUnderstanding comics