For non-expert users in safety-critical tasks, does replacing all visible chain-of-thought with (a) very short, contrastive answer-level summaries plus standardized second-order safety signals (uncertainty cues, verification prompts, localized meta-explanations) lead to better-calibrated trust and equal or higher accuracy than (b) bare answers with the same second-order signals but no contrastive summaries?

Answer

Replacing all visible chain-of-thought with very short, contrastive answer-level summaries plus standardized second-order safety signals is unlikely to reliably outperform bare answers with the same second-order signals but no contrastive summaries for non-expert users in safety-critical tasks. At best, this design can roughly match accuracy and modestly improve trust calibration for some users, but it does not systematically deliver better-calibrated trust or higher accuracy overall, and it can introduce extra pathways to over-trust or confusion if the contrastive summaries are poorly understood or over-weighted as evidence of correctness.