We present experimental findings from a study (N=99) examining how intellectual humility (IH), i.e., the metacognitive awareness of epistemic limitations, affects the evaluation of AI-generated health dialogues varying in scientific rigor. Participants were randomly assigned to evaluate one of three dialogues about exercise and mental health: scientifically accurate, moderately pseudoscientific, or strongly pseudoscientific. Results reveal that IH functions as a selective cognitive filter. Individuals with higher humility scores rated pseudoscientific content as significantly less credible, while showing no correlation with credibility assessments of accurate content. Crucially, humility did not predict the ability to identify AI as the source of dialogues, suggesting that epistemic vigilance operates on content quality rather than source attribution. We interpret these findings through an evolutionary lens, proposing that IH represents an ancestral adaptation for navigating informationally uncertain environments. It remains effective at detecting exploitation attempts in AI-generated content, despite humans lacking evolved mechanisms for detecting AI sources. The study contributes to understanding how foundation models might improve or undermine human epistemic defenses, especially in health communication contexts.

翻译：我们呈现一项实验研究（N=99）的发现，探讨智力谦逊（IH，即对认知局限性的元认知意识）如何影响对科学严谨程度各异的人工智能生成健康对话的评估。参与者被随机分配评估三段关于运动与心理健康的对话：科学准确型、中度伪科学型和重度伪科学型。结果表明，智力谦逊可充当选择性认知过滤器。谦逊评分较高的个体对伪科学内容的可信度评估显著降低，而对准确内容可信度的评估未呈现相关性。值得注意的是，谦逊水平无法预测识别对话来源为人工智能的能力，表明认知警觉性作用于内容质量而非来源归因。我们基于演化视角解读该发现，提出智力谦逊是祖先为在信息不确定性环境中生存而演化出的适应机制。尽管人类缺乏检测人工智能来源的演化机制，该机制仍能有效识别人工智能生成内容中的操纵企图。本研究有助于理解基础模型如何强化或削弱人类认知防御机制，尤其在健康传播情境中。