TY - GEN
T1 - “Do You Need the Sage’s Tea or the Friend’s Cola” Exploring the Differential Healing Effects of Generative AI Conversational Styles
AU - Song, Xinheng
AU - Song, Haiwen
AU - Gao, Bingjie
AU - Gao, Qijun
AU - Li, Wenting
AU - Xu, Linci
AU - Lu, Zhaolin
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2025 Copyright held by the owner/author(s).
PY - 2025/4/26
Y1 - 2025/4/26
N2 - While the preliminary exploration of Generative AI in aiding psychotherapy has already commenced, there has been no research on the intrinsic selection mechanism on the user side during the process of GAI-assisted psychological healing. To address this gap, we experimented with 30 participants using the fine-tuned large language model, assessing emotional responses through heart rate variability, facial expressions, and SAM scales. Results show that participants engaging with GAI therapists exhibiting slow response times and rich content experienced higher happiness, while those interacting with faster, brief-content GAI therapists showed greater surprise. Additionally, despite the stress levels initially slightly rising during conversations with GAI therapists, they decrease over time and ultimately lead to an improved emotional state. These findings validate the effectiveness of GAI therapists and provide a basis for applying GAI in different psychotherapy scenarios.
AB - While the preliminary exploration of Generative AI in aiding psychotherapy has already commenced, there has been no research on the intrinsic selection mechanism on the user side during the process of GAI-assisted psychological healing. To address this gap, we experimented with 30 participants using the fine-tuned large language model, assessing emotional responses through heart rate variability, facial expressions, and SAM scales. Results show that participants engaging with GAI therapists exhibiting slow response times and rich content experienced higher happiness, while those interacting with faster, brief-content GAI therapists showed greater surprise. Additionally, despite the stress levels initially slightly rising during conversations with GAI therapists, they decrease over time and ultimately lead to an improved emotional state. These findings validate the effectiveness of GAI therapists and provide a basis for applying GAI in different psychotherapy scenarios.
KW - Affective healing
KW - Dialogue Styles
KW - Facial expression
KW - Heart rate variability
KW - Human-AI interaction
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=105005762868&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1145/3706599.3720026
DO - 10.1145/3706599.3720026
M3 - Conference contribution
AN - SCOPUS:105005762868
T3 - Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems - Proceedings
BT - CHI EA 2025 - Extended Abstracts of the 2025 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems
PB - Association for Computing Machinery
T2 - 2025 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, CHI EA 2025
Y2 - 26 April 2025 through 1 May 2025
ER -