A Survey on Integration of Empathy Cues Into Empathetic Text Generation

In recent years, affective computing has seen a surge in empathetic response generation algorithms. These incorporate different empathy-related concepts to increase their perceived behavioral empathy. This survey aims to define the predominant research directions and offer structure to the field through the lens of empathy cues. In this definition, we include the concepts, factors, and components of interpersonal communication that relate to the expression of empathy. We describe the four general methods taken for extracting empathy cues from multiple sources. Subsequently, we explore three major strategies used to incorporate these cues into the text generation pipeline. Then, we present the methods used by the most prominent algorithms for evaluating their results and present a novel hierarchical view of performance across the field. Finally, we present areas of opportunity for novel approaches.