Dr Rakesh Sengupta, Assistant Professor, Psychology, SIAS has published a paper titled The Algorithmic Self-Fulfilling Prophecy: Stereotype Threat in AI Cognitive Diagnostics in Springer volume Frontiers in Advanced Computing and Emerging Intelligent Technologies (FaceIT 2026).
What happens when an AI dementia test causes the very cognitive decline it is trying to detect?
As hospitals rush to use AI voice-screening to diagnose Dementia, this paper reveals a dangerous psychological loop: the sheer anxiety of being tested by an AI triggers “stereotype threat” in older patients, temporarily degrading their working memory. The AI then misclassifies this anxiety as genuine dementia at a rate of up to 99.3%. This is a research output from the Computational Cognition Lab at SIAS.
