Incurious Motives to Seek Information about Potential Threats

Measures for explainable AI: Explanation goodness, user satisfaction, mental models, curiosity, trust, and human-AI performance

If a user is presented an AI system that portends to explain how it works, how do we know whether the explanation works and the user has achieved a pragmatic understanding of the AI? This question entails some key concepts of measurement such as explanation goodness and trust. We present methods for enabling developers and researchers to: (1) Assess the a priori goodness of explanations, (2) Assess users' satisfaction with explanations, (3) Reveal user's mental model of an AI system, (4) Assess user's curiosity or need for explanations, (5) Assess whether the user's trust and reliance on the AI are appropriate, and finally, (6) Assess how the human-XAI work system performs. The methods we present derive from our integration of extensive research literatures and our own psychometric evaluations. We point to the previous research that led to the measurement scales which we aggregated and tailored specifically for the XAI context. Scales are presented in sufficient detail to enable their use by XAI researchers. For Mental Model assessment and Work System Performance, XAI researchers have choices. We point to a number of methods, expressed in terms of methods' strengths and weaknesses, and pertinent measurement issues.

The Role of Approach and Avoidance Motivation and Emotion Regulation in Coping Via Health Information Seeking

When dealing with a health threat, health information seeking (HIS) is a prominent way of engagement coping. Yet, there is only limited research as to its motivational and emotion regulatory antecedents. We present a theoretical model integrating approach and avoidance motivation, emotion regulation, HIS self-efficacy, and problem and emotion coping focus as predictors of HIS. We propose that, in the context of HIS, (1) approach and avoidance motivation have a direct effect on emotion regulation ability (positive and negative, respectively), (2) approach and avoidance motivation have indirect effects on intended comprehensiveness of search via emotion regulation, HIS self-efficacy and problem coping focus, (3) avoidance motivation has a direct effect on emotion coping focus. Our model was tested by means of structural equation modeling in a sample of university students (N = 283). Model fit was good, and all three hypotheses were supported. We show that emotion regulation ability is essential to explain the effects of approach and avoidance motivation on HIS as it fosters self-efficacy and a problem coping focus. The direct effect of avoidance motivation on emotion focus may represent an alternative way of coping with a health threat for those individuals who are highly sensitive to threat-related emotions.