How do you study what AI does to people — rigorously?

RINHUMAI applies meta-analysis specifically to the growing body of quantitative research on how AI exposure affects attention, memory, judgment, and agency. Rather than relying on any single study, this approach synthesizes findings across independent datasets — making it possible to detect consistent patterns, resolve contradictions, and identify where evidence is strong and where it is thin.

By pooling findings systematically, meta-analysis can resolve apparent inconsistencies between individual studies, identify moderating variables, and clarify the direction and magnitude of effects that would otherwise remain ambiguous. It is particularly well-suited to a research field where individual studies vary widely in sample size, design, and population — as is currently the case for research on cognitive effects of AI mediation.

To study what AI mediation changes in human cognition, you need a rigorous way to observe what those cognitive states look like in their most intact, self-directed form — before and outside of AI scaffolding. The Meditation Workstation provides exactly that: a closed-loop research environment for observing and stabilizing deep, unmediated attentional states under controlled conditions.

The platform operates through multimodal sensory stimulation combined with real-time physiological sensing. Machine-learning-driven predictive feedback and biofeedback loops allow the system to adapt continuously to the user's measured state. The design philosophy treats these states as something that can be supported and studied through engineered, observable means — producing replicable data on forms of awareness that have historically been difficult to study systematically.

The system is built around practical engineering and safety constraints, uses available hardware and software components, and is designed to comply with established medical device safety standards. The broader design includes EEG and biofeedback sensing as part of its physiological measurement infrastructure — enabling direct observation of attentional and cognitive states during research sessions. It represents a replicable, technology-based platform amenable to further scientific study and industrial application.

Patent reference: USPTO application no. 19/369,243. Co-inventors: Prof. dr. Dirk K.F. Meijer and Richard Dobson.

Meta-analysis and the Meditation Workstation address what is already known and what can be observed under controlled conditions. A third methodological direction is under development: original empirical experiments designed to study how specific features of AI-mediated environments influence cognitive and deliberative outcomes.

This experimental paradigm allows RINHUMAI to go beyond synthesizing existing research — to actively manipulate structural features of AI-mediated settings and measure their effects on how people reason, deliberate, and decide. It operationalizes the core research questions rather than describing them from a distance.