It's only a computer: the impact of human-agent interaction in clinical interviews

Research has begun to explore the use of virtual humans (VHs) in medical interviews. When designed as supportive and safe interaction partners, VHs may improve such screenings by encouraging patients to disclose more personal information 2-3. In medical contexts, patients often feel resistance to self-disclosure and engage in impression management to be viewed more positively by healthcare providers. This paper provides the first empirical evidence that VHs can reduce such resistance and impression management. In the context of health-screening interviews, we report a study in which participants interacted with a VH that was either teleo-operated by humans (Wizard-of-Oz) or fully-automated (AI). Independently, we manipulated whether participants believed the VH was controlled by humans or automation. As predicted, participants who believed they were interacting with a computer reported lower resistance to self-disclosure, lower impression management and higher system usability than those who believed they were interacting with a human operator. Whether the virtual human was actually operated by a human or AI only affected ratings of the system's usability. These results suggest that automated VHs can help overcome a significant barrier to obtaining truthful patient information in medical domains.