Measuring the"Interaction Gap"in Drama Therapy with AI
TL;DR
This paper sketches a starting point for task design and measurement signals grounded in drama therapy's existing use of role and aesthetic distance, and raises provocations for workshop discussion: the observer effect and privacy paradox that measurement introduces, and the question of whose lens the gap is.
Abstract
Generative AI is increasingly being introduced into expressive arts therapy, where it is often credited with offering a non-judgmental environment that supports psychological safety. Existing HCI work has largely positioned AI as a co-creative material or as a bridge/mediator into human-led care. This paper explores a different position. When a patient performs the same drama therapy task with an AI partner and with a human partner, the resulting self-presentations tend to differ in patterned ways. We propose treating this difference, the Interaction Gap, as a diagnostic lens within drama therapy. Rather than asking which context elicits a truer self, the lens reads the difference between the two performances as information about the social pressures shaping self-expression in each context. We sketch a starting point for task design and measurement signals grounded in drama therapy's existing use of role and aesthetic distance, and raise provocations for workshop discussion: the observer effect and privacy paradox that measurement introduces, and the question of whose lens the gap is.
