Theory of Mind and Self-Disclosure to CUIs
This is an incremental workshop paper that addresses the challenge of improving user engagement and emotional well-being in human-CUI interactions.
The paper tackles the problem of encouraging self-disclosure to conversational user interfaces (CUIs) by exploring how social cues and transparency in a CUI's theory of mind, such as expressions of uncertainty or reasoning, can help users feel more comfortable sharing personal information.
Self-disclosure is important to help us feel better, yet is often difficult. This difficulty can arise from how we think people are going to react to our self-disclosure. In this workshop paper, we briefly discuss self-disclosure to conversational user interfaces (CUIs) in relation to various social cues. We then, discuss how expressions of uncertainty or representation of a CUI's reasoning could help encourage self-disclosure, by making a CUI's intended "theory of mind" more transparent to users.