Empathy as Predictive Misalignment Tolerance: A Co-Regulation Framework and the Regime Structure of Dialogue Repair

arXiv:2607.15282v1 Announce Type: cross Abstract: Empathy is most often theorized as resonance: a mirroring of another's present emotional or cognitive state. This synchronic framing has shaped artificial systems, where empathic behavior is defined as affect recognition and response alignment. We argue this is the wrong target for extended dialogue, where understanding unfolds over time through prediction, divergence, and repair. We reframe empathy as predictive misalignment tolerance: the capac...