arXiv subjects

Mahnaz Roshanaei

Publications and source records attributed to Mahnaz Roshanaei.

3 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2026

Faithful Where It Can Be Checked: Auditing a Reflection Agent Against Its System Prompt in a Randomized Trial

Conversational agents are increasingly used to guide reflection. A recent randomized trial compared a GPT-4o career reflection agent with the same program in a static journaling survey. Agent participants ended less committed to their career plans and more doubtful. We coded all 17,930 turns from its two studies, checked our coding against human coders and linked conversations to the trial's surveys. The rules the agent followed were the easy-to-check ones, like a reply length cap. Told not to flatter, it praised participants in half of its turns; told to challenge gently, it almost never did, and such a break leaves no visible trace. The behavior tied to the worse outcome was the demand to decide: the survey posed each decision once, while the agent asked again when participants hesitated, and those pressed most ended most doubtful. Our findings inform reflection agent design and the writing of checkable instructions.

cs.HC↗

arXiv2026

Relationship-Centered Care: Relatedness and Responsible Design for Human Connections in Mental-Health Care

There has been a growing research interest in Digital Therapeutic Alliance (DTA) as the field of AI-powered conversational agents are being deployed in mental health care, particularly those delivering CBT (Cognitive Behaviour Therapy). Our proposition argues that the current design paradigm which seeks to optimize the bond between a patient in need of support and an AI agent contains a subtle but consequential trap: it risks producing an "appearance of connection" that unintentionally disrupts the fundamental human need for relatedness, which potentially displaces the authentic human relationships upon which long-term psychological recovery depends. We propose a reorientation from designing artificial intelligence tools that simulate relationships to designing AI that scaffolds them. To operationalize our argument, we propose an interdisciplinary model that translates the Responsible AI Six Sphere Framework through the lens of Self-Determination Theory (SDT), with a specific focus on the basic psychological need for relatedness. The resulting model offers the technical and other clinical communities a set of relationship-centered design guidelines and relevant provocations for building AI systems that function not just as companions, but as a catalyst for strengthening a patient's entire relational ecology; their connections with therapists, caregivers, family, and peers. In doing so, we discuss a model towards a more sustainable ecosystem of relationship-centered AI in mental health care.

cs.HC↗

arXiv2025

Talk, Listen, Connect: How Humans and AI Evaluate Empathy in Responses to Emotionally Charged Narratives

Social interactions promote well-being, yet barriers like geographic distance, time limitations, and mental health conditions can limit face-to-face interactions. Emotionally responsive AI systems, such as chatbots, offer new opportunities for social and emotional support, but raise critical questions about how empathy is perceived and experienced in human-AI interactions. This study examines how empathy is evaluated in AI-generated versus human responses. Using personal narratives, we explored how persona attributes (e.g., gender, empathic traits, shared experiences) and story qualities affect empathy ratings. We compared responses from standard and fine-tuned AI models with human judgments. Results show that while humans are highly sensitive to emotional vividness and shared experience, AI-responses are less influenced by these cues, often lack nuance in empathic expression. These findings highlight challenges in designing emotionally intelligent systems that respond meaningfully across diverse users and contexts, and informs the design of ethically aware tools to support social connection and well-being.

cs.HC↗