Date Completed
Spring 2026
Abstract
With the rising worldwide adoption of artificial intelligence (AI), there is a pressing need to investigate how AI affects human cognitive abilities. Prior research has looked at how using the Internet to search for answers to questions leads to overconfidence in one’s explanatory abilities. In the present set of studies, we examine how using AI to search for answers affects an individual’s confidence in their explanatory abilities, as well as their curiosity about answers to questions. The first study consisted of 223 college students from the University of New Hampshire, while the second study consisted of 290 participants from the online research platform Prolific. All participants were randomly assigned to either the AI group or the No AI group. Participants in the AI group were asked to use ChatGPT to find the answers to questions while participants in the No AI group were asked to consider the answers without using any outside resources. When given new sets of unrelated questions, participants in the AI group were less confident in their ability to explain answers than participants in the No AI group. This suggests that utilizing AI may fundamentally alter people’s beliefs about their own explanatory abilities.
Document Type
Undergraduate Thesis
First Advisor
Emily Liquin
College or School
COLA
Department or Program
Honors Psychology
Degree Name
Bachelor of Arts
Recommended Citation
Dudley, Kara E., "AI and the Illusion of Knowledge? How AI-Assisted Searching Affects Confidence and Curiosity" (2026). UNH URC Open (2026 and after). 13.
https://scholars.unh.edu/urc_open/13