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Article History

Received: 12 December 2024

Accepted: 23 May 2025

First Online: 23 July 2025

Competing interests

: The authors declare no competing interests.

: This study was reviewed and approved by the Hong Kong Baptist University Research Ethics Committee (Human Research Ethics – Non-clinical; Ref. No. REC/22-23/0680) on 5 October 2023. All procedures involving human participants were conducted in accordance with the relevant guidelines and regulations, including the Declaration of Helsinki. The scope of the approval covered the administration of an online survey to examine how algorithm transparency signaling influences trust in AI-assisted communication.

: Written informed consent was obtained from all survey participants. The consent was collected during the survey and the date of the collection was from 29 October 2023 to 05 November 2023. At the outset of the online questionnaire, each participant was presented with an Informed Consent Statement that explained the study’s purpose and procedures (a 10-min survey probing attitudes toward AI-assisted communication), their right to withdraw at any point without penalty, and the possibility of experiencing mild emotional discomfort when reflecting on personal views of AI. Assurances were given that all responses would remain anonymous, that data would be coded and securely stored, and that only aggregated results would be reported. To acknowledge their time and effort, participants were compensated with US $3.40 upon survey completion. Consent was indicated by clicking “Agree” before proceeding. No vulnerable populations were involved in this study, and all collected data were fully anonymized.\