Parallel empathy or reactive empathy? The role of emotional support provided by affective pedagogical agent in online learning

To increase human-computer interaction and motivate university students' online learning, this study investigated the effects of affective pedagogical agent (PA) providing parallel empathy and reactive empathy in an online learning scenario. In a 2 (Parallel empathy: yes vs. no) × 2 (Reactive empathy: yes vs. no) between-subjects design, 122 university students learned 10 psychological concepts about judgment and decision-making while their eye movements were tracked and physiological arousals (i.e., heart rate and electrodermal activity) were detected. The results found that (a) affective PA that provides learners with reactive empathy could enhance learners' physiological arousal, guide learners to devote more attention to key learning content, and improve retention and transfer performances; (b) affective PA providing both parallel empathy and reactive empathy was more likely to promote transfer performance than those only providing parallel empathy or reactive empathy; (c) affective PA neither increased learners' extraneous cognitive load nor distracted learners' attention. In summary, this study confirms that reactive empathy may be the most important empathy provided by affective PA, and demonstrates that affective PA providing both parallel empathy and reactive empathy were most effective in promoting deep learning. Research findings help enrich prior theories and provide a reference for future researchers to design affective PA.