Research

Although I have been affiliated with the RIISC Lab for about 2.5 years, I have only been involved in this project for about 2 months. In an effort to design and carry out a project focused on analyzing and reducing sexual interest misperception in sex and gender diverse populations, I will conduct a secondary analysis of existing data using independent samples t-tests to compare the sex and gender minority (SGM) men and cisgender, heterosexual (cishet) men, and draft a manuscript reporting and interpreting the results in APA format. Then, I will use this information to develop a tailored AI-powered tool to reduce SI misperceptions among SGM men (and later, cishet men broadly).

Through UF’s collaboration with CogAbility, students have leveraged AI to create CogBots using CogUniversity. I will create a custom-trained natural language processing CogBot designed to reduce sexual interest (SI) misperceptions. Similar to “Alli Gator,” which serves as a chatbot that answers questions about UF, an “Are They Just Not That into You?” chatbot would answer questions about common SI misperceptions and provide tips on how to recognize actual cues of SI correctly. Based on a lit review, in initial development stages, we would feed the chatbot peer-reviewed articles on SI judgements so that it may become familiarized with best practices in “correct” SI judgements.