When a person with dementia asks about a deceased partner’s health, caregivers and relatives are often unsure how to respond. These interactions involving reality disjunction are ethically and emotionally complex, with no universal ‘right’ answer. Reflecting on such interactions may help people better understand and navigate these situations. We explore how chatbots can complement humans in supporting such reflection. We designed three chatbots that support reflection through role-play, dilemmas, or analysis, and used them as probes in focus groups with 14 relatives and 10 caregivers of people with dementia. Findings reveal complementary strengths. Humans provide irreplaceable reflective support grounded in contextual, emotional, experiential, and relational involvement. Chatbots’ lack of human qualities offers unconstrained suggestions, evidence-based feedback, and emotionally distanced dialogue without relational consequences. We offer empirical insights into reflective support needs in dementia care and provide design implications for chatbots that complement rather than mimic human reflection.

As Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) researchers increasingly conduct studies involving populations with stigmatised identities, more researchers must focus on creating conversational spaces where participants feel comfortable discussing their experiences. This study unpacks how and why HCI researchers engage in self-disclosure to facilitate such spaces. We share eight autoethnographic personal stories of key moments when we disclosed or concealed personal information in our HCI studies with diverse participant groups (people with dementia, victims of online romance scams, children with autism, and North Korean defectors). Through analysing these stories, we found that these decisions were shaped by various goals: creating a welcoming environment, demonstrating credibility, establishing common ground, reducing stigma, and directing the interview’s focus. The acts of disclosure or concealment affected the interactions with participants, the collected data, and the well-being of the researcher and participant. We argue that greater awareness, reflection, guidance, and sharing are needed regarding self-disclosure in HCI research and offer a reflexive guide to help researchers prepare for and reflect on their self-disclosure practices. By making these practices visible and open to discussion, we aim to make researcher-participant interactions in sensitive settings more ethical, effective, and transparent. • HCI researchers dynamically disclose/conceal personal information with stigmatised groups. • Researchers differ in the who/what/when/why(not)/how of their self-disclosure. • HCI lacks awareness, guidelines, and transparency for researcher self-disclosure. • Reflexivity around self-disclosure is needed for ethical and effective research.

Informed consent is essential for ethical research, but applying it in technology research involving people with dementia can be challenging. We conducted interviews with researchers, participants with dementia, and data stewards to explore these challenges and strategies for obtaining consent. Using communication theory, we examined how linear, dynamic, and contextual communication elements influence consent practices. Our findings show that relying too much on one-way information transfer creates problems in conveying information, documenting agreements, monitoring ongoing consent, and improving the consent processes. However, dynamic, context-sensitive strategies, such as paraphrasing information, fostering personal relationships, and designing supportive environments, can turn consent into a collaborative and inclusive process. We offer practical recommendations and reflective questions to improve consent conversations in dementia research and suggest future directions for more dynamic consent materials. By reframing consent as a dynamic and contextual process, we aim to make technology research in sensitive settings more ethical and inclusive.

Communication can become challenging for people with dementia due to language, speech, discourse, and memory impairments. Although recent developments in Human-Computer Interaction have addressed some of these communication challenges, little is known about how they affect the self-presentation of people with dementia in everyday interactions. To understand this connection, we conducted interviews with sixteen people with dementia, six spouses, and fourteen formal caregivers. Our qualitative data revealed that people with dementia’s presentation of competence, politeness, engagement, and reality are altered by communication challenges, which can impact their self-esteem, interactions, and relationships. Our study highlights the need for developing technologies that can enhance mutual understanding and acceptance of people with dementia’s evolving presentation of self. Additionally, policy changes are required to reduce the stigma associated with communication challenges to foster social inclusion.