Exploring the Impact of Explainable AI and Cognitive Capabilities on Users' Decisions

Fuente: arXiv
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Autores principales: Cau, Federico Maria, Spano, Lucio Davide
Formato: Preprint
Publicado: 2025
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author Cau, Federico Maria
Spano, Lucio Davide
author_facet Cau, Federico Maria
Spano, Lucio Davide
contents Artificial Intelligence (AI) systems are increasingly used for decision-making across domains, raising debates over the information and explanations they should provide. Most research on Explainable AI (XAI) has focused on feature-based explanations, with less attention on alternative styles. Personality traits like the Need for Cognition (NFC) can also lead to different decision-making outcomes among low and high NFC individuals. We investigated how presenting AI information (prediction, confidence, and accuracy) and different explanation styles (example-based, feature-based, rule-based, and counterfactual) affect accuracy, reliance on AI, and cognitive load in a loan application scenario. We also examined low and high NFC individuals' differences in prioritizing XAI interface elements (loan attributes, AI information, and explanations), accuracy, and cognitive load. Our findings show that high AI confidence significantly increases reliance on AI while reducing cognitive load. Feature-based explanations did not enhance accuracy compared to other conditions. Although counterfactual explanations were less understandable, they enhanced overall accuracy, increasing reliance on AI and reducing cognitive load when AI predictions were correct. Both low and high NFC individuals prioritized explanations after loan attributes, leaving AI information as the least important. However, we found no significant differences between low and high NFC groups in accuracy or cognitive load, raising questions about the role of personality traits in AI-assisted decision-making. These findings highlight the need for user-centric personalization in XAI interfaces, incorporating diverse explanation styles and exploring multiple personality traits and other user characteristics to optimize human-AI collaboration.
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spellingShingle Exploring the Impact of Explainable AI and Cognitive Capabilities on Users' Decisions
Cau, Federico Maria
Spano, Lucio Davide
Artificial Intelligence
Human-Computer Interaction
Artificial Intelligence (AI) systems are increasingly used for decision-making across domains, raising debates over the information and explanations they should provide. Most research on Explainable AI (XAI) has focused on feature-based explanations, with less attention on alternative styles. Personality traits like the Need for Cognition (NFC) can also lead to different decision-making outcomes among low and high NFC individuals. We investigated how presenting AI information (prediction, confidence, and accuracy) and different explanation styles (example-based, feature-based, rule-based, and counterfactual) affect accuracy, reliance on AI, and cognitive load in a loan application scenario. We also examined low and high NFC individuals' differences in prioritizing XAI interface elements (loan attributes, AI information, and explanations), accuracy, and cognitive load. Our findings show that high AI confidence significantly increases reliance on AI while reducing cognitive load. Feature-based explanations did not enhance accuracy compared to other conditions. Although counterfactual explanations were less understandable, they enhanced overall accuracy, increasing reliance on AI and reducing cognitive load when AI predictions were correct. Both low and high NFC individuals prioritized explanations after loan attributes, leaving AI information as the least important. However, we found no significant differences between low and high NFC groups in accuracy or cognitive load, raising questions about the role of personality traits in AI-assisted decision-making. These findings highlight the need for user-centric personalization in XAI interfaces, incorporating diverse explanation styles and exploring multiple personality traits and other user characteristics to optimize human-AI collaboration.
title Exploring the Impact of Explainable AI and Cognitive Capabilities on Users' Decisions
topic Artificial Intelligence
Human-Computer Interaction
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2505.01192