Abstract
The purpose of this research is to develop a method to improve the empathy of the observer by virtual experience of becoming a plant. This method develops a system that feeds back the stimuli felt by the plant to the observer as vision, auditory, and tactile information. Two experiments were conducted to evaluate the effectiveness of this method. In the first experiment, we compared the results with and without experiencing plant vision. As a result, observers reported a closer psychological distance to the plant in the condition where they experienced the plant's vision. In the second experiment, we examined the effect on empathy when the stimuli feed back to the observer were a combination of vision, auditory, and tactile stimuli. The results suggest that increasing the stimulus feedback to the observer improves the psychological distance and facilitates the generation of empathy for the plant.
