Influence of the pre-task prior-knowledge question on outcomes

Ascertain how the pre-task question soliciting participants’ initial answer and confidence before reading AI-generated passages influenced the study’s measured outcomes on perceived AI capacity and comprehension, given its use to control prior knowledge effects.

Background

To control for prior knowledge, participants first answered the target information-seeking question and rated their confidence before viewing AI-generated passages. The paper then measured perceived AI capacity and comprehension, analyzing effects of passage consistency and number of passages.

The authors explicitly state uncertainty about the extent to which this pre-task step influenced the experimental results, indicating a need to quantify or isolate any confounding impact of this procedural element on the main dependent measures.