Disrupting Cognitive Passivity: Rethinking AI-Assisted Data Literacy through Cognitive Alignment

Fuente: arXiv
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Main Authors: Ahn, Yongsu, Kim, Nam Wook, Bach, Benjamin
Format: Preprint
Published: 2026
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author Ahn, Yongsu
Kim, Nam Wook
Bach, Benjamin
author_facet Ahn, Yongsu
Kim, Nam Wook
Bach, Benjamin
contents AI chatbots are increasingly stepping into roles as collaborators or teachers in analyzing, visualizing, and reasoning through data and domain problem. Yet, AI's default assistant mode with its comprehensive and one-off responses may undermine opportunities for practitioners to develop literacy through their own thinking, inducing cognitive passivity. Drawing on evidence from empirical studies and theories, we argue that disrupting cognitive passivity necessitates a nuanced approach: rather than simply making AI promote deliberative thinking, there is a need for more dynamic and adaptive strategy through cognitive alignment -- a framework that characterizes effective human-AI interaction as a function of alignment between users' cognitive demand and AI's interaction mode. In the framework, we provide the mapping between AI's interaction mode (transmissive or deliberative) and users' cognitive demand (receptive or deliberative), otherwise leading to either cognitive passivity or friction. We further discuss implications and offer open questions for future research on data literacy.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2604_02783
institution arXiv
publishDate 2026
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Disrupting Cognitive Passivity: Rethinking AI-Assisted Data Literacy through Cognitive Alignment
Ahn, Yongsu
Kim, Nam Wook
Bach, Benjamin
Human-Computer Interaction
Artificial Intelligence
AI chatbots are increasingly stepping into roles as collaborators or teachers in analyzing, visualizing, and reasoning through data and domain problem. Yet, AI's default assistant mode with its comprehensive and one-off responses may undermine opportunities for practitioners to develop literacy through their own thinking, inducing cognitive passivity. Drawing on evidence from empirical studies and theories, we argue that disrupting cognitive passivity necessitates a nuanced approach: rather than simply making AI promote deliberative thinking, there is a need for more dynamic and adaptive strategy through cognitive alignment -- a framework that characterizes effective human-AI interaction as a function of alignment between users' cognitive demand and AI's interaction mode. In the framework, we provide the mapping between AI's interaction mode (transmissive or deliberative) and users' cognitive demand (receptive or deliberative), otherwise leading to either cognitive passivity or friction. We further discuss implications and offer open questions for future research on data literacy.
title Disrupting Cognitive Passivity: Rethinking AI-Assisted Data Literacy through Cognitive Alignment
topic Human-Computer Interaction
Artificial Intelligence
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2604.02783