H2HTalk: Evaluating Large Language Models as Emotional Companion

Fuente: arXiv
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Main Authors: Wang, Boyang, Wu, Yalun, Guo, Hongcheng, Li, Zhoujun
Format: Preprint
Published: 2025
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author Wang, Boyang
Wu, Yalun
Guo, Hongcheng
Li, Zhoujun
author_facet Wang, Boyang
Wu, Yalun
Guo, Hongcheng
Li, Zhoujun
contents As digital emotional support needs grow, Large Language Model companions offer promising authentic, always-available empathy, though rigorous evaluation lags behind model advancement. We present Heart-to-Heart Talk (H2HTalk), a benchmark assessing companions across personality development and empathetic interaction, balancing emotional intelligence with linguistic fluency. H2HTalk features 4,650 curated scenarios spanning dialogue, recollection, and itinerary planning that mirror real-world support conversations, substantially exceeding previous datasets in scale and diversity. We incorporate a Secure Attachment Persona (SAP) module implementing attachment-theory principles for safer interactions. Benchmarking 50 LLMs with our unified protocol reveals that long-horizon planning and memory retention remain key challenges, with models struggling when user needs are implicit or evolve mid-conversation. H2HTalk establishes the first comprehensive benchmark for emotionally intelligent companions. We release all materials to advance development of LLMs capable of providing meaningful and safe psychological support.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2507_03543
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle H2HTalk: Evaluating Large Language Models as Emotional Companion
Wang, Boyang
Wu, Yalun
Guo, Hongcheng
Li, Zhoujun
Computation and Language
Artificial Intelligence
As digital emotional support needs grow, Large Language Model companions offer promising authentic, always-available empathy, though rigorous evaluation lags behind model advancement. We present Heart-to-Heart Talk (H2HTalk), a benchmark assessing companions across personality development and empathetic interaction, balancing emotional intelligence with linguistic fluency. H2HTalk features 4,650 curated scenarios spanning dialogue, recollection, and itinerary planning that mirror real-world support conversations, substantially exceeding previous datasets in scale and diversity. We incorporate a Secure Attachment Persona (SAP) module implementing attachment-theory principles for safer interactions. Benchmarking 50 LLMs with our unified protocol reveals that long-horizon planning and memory retention remain key challenges, with models struggling when user needs are implicit or evolve mid-conversation. H2HTalk establishes the first comprehensive benchmark for emotionally intelligent companions. We release all materials to advance development of LLMs capable of providing meaningful and safe psychological support.
title H2HTalk: Evaluating Large Language Models as Emotional Companion
topic Computation and Language
Artificial Intelligence
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2507.03543