Racial mirroring effects on human-agent interaction in psychotherapeutic conversations

Conversational agents are increasingly utilized to deliver mental health interventions. However, these systems are characterized by relatively poor adoption and adherence. Our study explores the "racial mirroring" effects on how people perceive and engage with agents in the context of psychotherapy. We developed a conversational system with racially heterogeneous personas using strong visual cues. We conducted an experiment by randomly assigning participants (N=212) to racial mirroring, non-mirroring and control groups. Our results suggest that racial mirroring did influence human-agent interaction in terms of perceived interpersonal closeness, user satisfaction, disclosure comfort, desire to continue interacting, and projected future relationship with agents. In this paper, we present the conversational system, experimental procedure, and results. We conclude with design recommendations for employing conversational agents in mental health intervention.