Technologies from science fiction movies and books sometimes become true in real life. Our research project was inspired by a Sci-Fi story from a book by Philip K. Dick called "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep" (1968), which was later turned into a movie called "Blade Runner" (1982). The story takes place in the year 2019, when androids made of artificial flesh, bones, and brains became so similar to humans that they could hardly be recognized as "machines." A detection device had to be used to find the only difference between androids and humans: the fact that only humans could have deep emotions, truly care for someone else, and experience what the other person is feeling – something we call empathy.
Empathic emotions such as affection are very important for humans, since the ability to build and sustain connections to other people is critical for our wellbeing and survival . These empathic emotions are important for things such as loving relationships, the care of a mother for her children, team spirit, and cooperation, or even something as simple as helping a friend. These emotions also lead to behaviors, such as unselfishness, that help people to live together in society .

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Go to source: https://kids.frontiersin.org/article/10.3389/frym.2016.00021