Professors and researchers at Acadia are continually finding ways to better understand real life issues and to find solutions that people in our communities can access. Dr. Daniel Lametti, Associate Professor of Cognitive Psychology at Acadia University, is one of those seekers. 

Throughout the day, we all have different thoughts running through our minds – much of which can reflect and influence our mental health. Dr. Lametti is working on a way to better capture, understand, and guide inner dialogue to help people improve their mental health – and he’s using the latest AI technologies to do it. 

Dr. Lametti has teamed up with University College London PhD candidate, Joanna Kuc, and the AI company, OneReach, to create a helpful “journaling bot”. The conversational AI tool prompts people to share their thoughts and feelings and later provides insightful weekly summaries of these entries back to the users. 

Fascinatingly, those who use voice recognition software to make their journal entries will also have their manner of speaking analysed by the bot. This aspect, along with the content of the entries, and an analysis of when and how often people think and feel certain things, can help to tell a fuller story of how a person is doing. 

Beyond making these observations known to users, the AI tool can be used to provide alerts or suggestions to help modify a person’s behaviour or mood, potentially preventing greater lapses in mental health. The pair hope to soon make the bot publicly available through Telegram.

Dr. Lametti and Joanna Kuc recently walked through their bot in the Invisible Machines podcast. Learn more about it and the findings they’ve gathered so far:

• On YouTube
• On Spotify
• On Apple Podcasts

Get the Acadia experience with Dr. Lametti

Dr. Lametti is on sabbatical in 2024, but he typically teaches Introduction to Cognition, Psycholinguistics, and Writing About Psychological Science within the Department of Psychology.