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Although Artificial Intelligence and its applications in medicine are growing rapidly, its integration into mental health remains at an early stage. The aim of the study is to evaluate psychology students’ attitudes and the significance of brief interventions towards Artificial Intelligence systems and their application in mental healthcare. The study involved 62 psychology students (M= 23.19±4.69; 85.5% women). Thirty-one participants tested the Artificial Intelligence-based emotional support app Wysa, and thirty-one others watched a presentation on the use of Artificial Intelligence in providing psychological assistance, based on the latest scientific research. Attitudes towards Artificial Intelligence were assessed before and after the interventions using the General Attitudes towards Artificial Intelligence Scale and an adapted version of the Questionnaire for Attitudes Toward Medical Application of Artificial Intelligence to examine psychologists’ attitudes towards the use of artificial intelligence in their work.
During interventions, facial expression analysis software FaceReader was used to assess participants’ emotions. Following a scientific presentation, participants showed significative increases in positive attitudes, compared to those who used Wysa. While improvements in negative attitudes were noted, these did not differ significantly between groups. Positive changes in perceived Artificial Intelligence advantages were positively associated with feelings of surprise and fear, and negatively with contempt and disgust. Perceived Artificial Intelligence disadvantages correlated positively with contempt. The scientific presentation helped students develop more positive attitudes toward Artificial Intelligence, suggesting that education on Artificial Intelligence is important in shaping future psychologists’ view on new technologies. Emotional responses (particularly surprise, fear, disgust, and contempt) played a significant role in these attitude changes.
