It seems like they are taking a very difficult approach to this. As humans we develop the ability to read human feelings through our mirror neurons and biofeed

It seems like they are taking a very difficult approach to this. As humans we develop the ability to read human feelings through our mirror neurons and biofeedback from our own body. If you take away the body, and all those nerves feeding back sensation, you're making the problem far harder. Without a body, of course, there won't ever really be meaningful emotion in a robot since emotion is primarily a body-oriented biofeedback thing. That's why people who experience total facial paralysis lose the ability to feel some emotions, then lose the ability to remember what feeling them felt like, eventually on to losing the ability to recognize them in others. Anger, from things I've read, is the standout on that count. The expression of emotion in your body in a very real way is the emotion. Put a pencil in your teeth and you will feel happier because it forces your mouth into a smile. IMO the research screams that you need a body (or perhaps a simulated simulacra of one) for emotion. And to recognize emotion well and be able to empathize, mirror neurons seem a really tried-and-true solution to that.