Critical reading is a primary way through which researchers develop their critical thinking skills. While exchanging thoughts and opinions with peers can strengthen critical reading, junior researchers often lack access to peers who can offer diverse perspectives. To address this gap, we designed an in-situ thought exchange interface informed by peer feedback from a formative study (N=8) to support junior researchers' critical paper reading. We evaluated the effects of thought exchanges under three conditions (no-agent, single-agent, and multi-agent) with 46 junior researchers over two weeks. Our results showed that incorporating agent-mediated thought exchanges during paper reading significantly improved participants' critical thinking scores compared to the no-agent condition. In the single-agent condition, participants more frequently made reflective annotations on the paper content. In the multi-agent condition, participants engaged more actively with agents' responses. Our qualitative analysis further revealed that participants compared and analyzed multiple perspectives in the multi-agent condition. This work contributes to understanding in-situ AI-based support for critical paper reading through thought exchanges and offers design implications for future research.

翻译：批判性阅读是研究者培养批判性思维能力的主要途径。虽然与同行交流思想和观点可以强化批判性阅读，但初级研究者往往缺乏能够提供多元视角的同行。为弥补这一差距，我们基于一项形成性研究（N=8）中的同行反馈，设计了一个即时思想交流界面，以支持初级研究者的批判性论文阅读。我们在两周内对46名初级研究者在三种条件（无智能体、单智能体、多智能体）下进行了思想交流效果的评估。结果显示，与无智能体条件相比，在论文阅读过程中引入智能体介导的思想交流显著提高了参与者的批判性思维得分。在单智能体条件下，参与者更频繁地对论文内容做出反思性批注。在多智能体条件下，参与者更积极地与智能体的回应进行互动。我们的定性分析进一步揭示，在多智能体条件下，参与者对多种视角进行了比较和分析。本研究通过思想交流，为理解基于人工智能的即时支持在批判性论文阅读中的作用做出了贡献，并为未来研究提供了设计启示。