Trial reportJMIR human factors2024
Usability Comparison Among Healthy Participants of an Anthropomorphic Digital Human and a Text-Based Chatbot as a Responder to Questions on Mental Health: Randomized Controlled Trial.
Trial report in JMIR human factors, 2024. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 9 papers, 2 of them syntheses that pooled it.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
9 citing papers in PubMed, 2 syntheses or guidelines pooled it.
- Usability and User Experience Assessment of Health Care Conversational Agents Using Validated Subjective Instruments: Systematic Review and Comparative Analysis.JMIR human factors · 2026Pooled it
- Engagement With Conversational Agent-Enabled Interventions in Cardiometabolic Disease Self-Management: Systematic Review.JMIR mHealth and uHealth · 2025Pooled it
- Comparison of an AI Chatbot With a Nurse Hotline in Reducing Anxiety and Depression Levels in the General Population: Pilot Randomized Controlled Trial.JMIR human factors · 2025Trial
- Possible Role and Function of AI Conversational Agents in Dialectical Behavior Therapy for Borderline Personality Disorder: Qualitative Interview Study.JMIR mental health · 2026Article
- Behavior Emotion Therapy System and You: Co-Design and Evaluation of a Mental Health Chatbot and Digital Human for Mild to Moderate Anxiety in Healthy Participants.JMIR formative research · 2025Article
- Charting the evolution of artificial intelligence mental health chatbots from rule-based systems to large language models: a systematic review.World psychiatry : official journal of the World Psychiatric Association (WPA) · 2025Article
- AI Chatbots for Psychological Health for Health Professionals: Scoping Review.JMIR human factors · 2025Article
- Artificial Intelligence in Psychiatry: A Review of Biological and Behavioral Data Analyses.Diagnostics (Basel, Switzerland) · 2025Review
- Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
6 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundThe use of chatbots in mental health support has increased exponentially in recent years, with studies showing that they may be effective in treating mental health problems. More recently, the use of visual avatars called digital humans has been introduced. Digital humans have the capability to use facial expressions as another dimension in human-computer interactions. It is important to study the difference in emotional response and usability preferences between text-based chatbots and digital humans for interacting with mental health services.
objectiveThis study aims to explore to what extent a digital human interface and a text-only chatbot interface differed in usability when tested by healthy participants, using BETSY (Behavior, Emotion, Therapy System, and You) which uses 2 distinct interfaces: a digital human with anthropomorphic features and a text-only user interface. We also set out to explore how chatbot-generated conversations on mental health (specific to each interface) affected self-reported feelings and biometrics.
methodsWe explored to what extent a digital human with anthropomorphic features differed from a traditional text-only chatbot regarding perception of usability through the System Usability Scale, emotional reactions through electroencephalography, and feelings of closeness. Healthy participants (n=45) were randomized to 2 groups that used a digital human with anthropomorphic features (n=25) or a text-only chatbot with no such features (n=20). The groups were compared by linear regression analysis and t tests.
resultsNo differences were observed between the text-only and digital human groups regarding demographic features. The mean System Usability Scale score was 75.34 (SD 10.01; range 57-90) for the text-only chatbot versus 64.80 (SD 14.14; range 40-90) for the digital human interface. Both groups scored their respective chatbot interfaces as average or above average in usability. Women were more likely to report feeling annoyed by BETSY.
conclusionsThe text-only chatbot was perceived as significantly more user-friendly than the digital human, although there were no significant differences in electroencephalography measurements. Male participants exhibited lower levels of annoyance with both interfaces, contrary to previously reported findings.
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Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.