fNIRS Brain Responses to Robot and Human Pain, 39 Participants

A study by Jenna H. Chin, last updated in June 2026, examines neural correlates of empathy for robot pain using functional Near-Infrared Spectroscopy (fNIRS). The dataset includes behavioral and neuroimaging data from 39 adults who viewed and rated photos of human and robot faces in painful and neutral touch conditions. An initial online survey with 63 adults was used to validate the photo stimuli.

Use Cases

• Analyze the relationship between self-reported empathy and neural activation based on individual differences data.
• Compare behavioral pain ratings for human versus robot stimuli based on the described rating task.
• Investigate neural response patterns to painful touch conditions using fNIRS data.
• Validate photo stimuli for eliciting intended emotional responses in empathy research.

Strengths

• Includes neuroimaging (fNIRS) data from 39 participants, providing a direct measure of brain activity.
• Uses a diverse range of validated human and robot face stimuli, as developed in a prior survey with 63 adults.
• Released under a permissive CC-BY-4.0 license, allowing for broad reuse and sharing.

Limitations

• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• Row count is unknown, which may limit suitability assessment for large-scale analyses.
• The dataset is relatively small in file size (866.8 KB), suggesting limited scope.

Provenance

Source

figshare, author Jenna H. Chin

Collection Method

Data collected via an online survey (N=63) and an in-lab fNIRS task (N=39) where participants viewed and rated photo stimuli.

Freshness

Last updated 2026-06-03 06:01:12; freshness should be verified.