Can Large Language Models be Good Emotional Supporter? Mitigating Preference Bias on Emotional Support Conversation

Fuente: arXiv
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Autori principali: Kang, Dongjin, Kim, Sunghwan, Kwon, Taeyoon, Moon, Seungjun, Cho, Hyunsouk, Yu, Youngjae, Lee, Dongha, Yeo, Jinyoung
Natura: Preprint
Pubblicazione: 2024
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author Kang, Dongjin
Kim, Sunghwan
Kwon, Taeyoon
Moon, Seungjun
Cho, Hyunsouk
Yu, Youngjae
Lee, Dongha
Yeo, Jinyoung
author_facet Kang, Dongjin
Kim, Sunghwan
Kwon, Taeyoon
Moon, Seungjun
Cho, Hyunsouk
Yu, Youngjae
Lee, Dongha
Yeo, Jinyoung
contents Emotional Support Conversation (ESC) is a task aimed at alleviating individuals' emotional distress through daily conversation. Given its inherent complexity and non-intuitive nature, ESConv dataset incorporates support strategies to facilitate the generation of appropriate responses. Recently, despite the remarkable conversational ability of large language models (LLMs), previous studies have suggested that they often struggle with providing useful emotional support. Hence, this work initially analyzes the results of LLMs on ESConv, revealing challenges in selecting the correct strategy and a notable preference for a specific strategy. Motivated by these, we explore the impact of the inherent preference in LLMs on providing emotional support, and consequently, we observe that exhibiting high preference for specific strategies hinders effective emotional support, aggravating its robustness in predicting the appropriate strategy. Moreover, we conduct a methodological study to offer insights into the necessary approaches for LLMs to serve as proficient emotional supporters. Our findings emphasize that (1) low preference for specific strategies hinders the progress of emotional support, (2) external assistance helps reduce preference bias, and (3) existing LLMs alone cannot become good emotional supporters. These insights suggest promising avenues for future research to enhance the emotional intelligence of LLMs.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2402_13211
institution arXiv
publishDate 2024
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Can Large Language Models be Good Emotional Supporter? Mitigating Preference Bias on Emotional Support Conversation
Kang, Dongjin
Kim, Sunghwan
Kwon, Taeyoon
Moon, Seungjun
Cho, Hyunsouk
Yu, Youngjae
Lee, Dongha
Yeo, Jinyoung
Computation and Language
Emotional Support Conversation (ESC) is a task aimed at alleviating individuals' emotional distress through daily conversation. Given its inherent complexity and non-intuitive nature, ESConv dataset incorporates support strategies to facilitate the generation of appropriate responses. Recently, despite the remarkable conversational ability of large language models (LLMs), previous studies have suggested that they often struggle with providing useful emotional support. Hence, this work initially analyzes the results of LLMs on ESConv, revealing challenges in selecting the correct strategy and a notable preference for a specific strategy. Motivated by these, we explore the impact of the inherent preference in LLMs on providing emotional support, and consequently, we observe that exhibiting high preference for specific strategies hinders effective emotional support, aggravating its robustness in predicting the appropriate strategy. Moreover, we conduct a methodological study to offer insights into the necessary approaches for LLMs to serve as proficient emotional supporters. Our findings emphasize that (1) low preference for specific strategies hinders the progress of emotional support, (2) external assistance helps reduce preference bias, and (3) existing LLMs alone cannot become good emotional supporters. These insights suggest promising avenues for future research to enhance the emotional intelligence of LLMs.
title Can Large Language Models be Good Emotional Supporter? Mitigating Preference Bias on Emotional Support Conversation
topic Computation and Language
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2402.13211