Providing different levels of accuracy about the reliability of automation to a human operator: impact on human performance

Abstract

Previous research has suggested that supervising automation can lead to a decrease in human performance, especially when automation is not totally reliable. Providing context-related information about reliability can help operators to better adjust their behaviour in a human–automation interaction context. However, previous studies have not specified the level of accuracy that this information should provide to the human operator. The objective of this study was to investigate the effects of different levels of information accuracy about an automation’s reliability on human performance. Results showed that accuracy of information about reliability improves performance when specific percentages of reliability were given to the participants. Participants had a better performance in the condition of high accuracy of information. A link between perceived reliability and trust was found: the more the trust in automation increased, the more the perceived reliability increased.

Practitioner summary: The experiment dealt with how accurate information about automation’s reliability influences people’s performance when supervising an automated task. Overall, this research suggests that designing systems that provide accurate, useful information can reduce the frequency of automation bias. Trust and perceived reliability of automation are related.

Abbreviations: MATB: multi attribute task battery

Keywords:

• Reliability
• accuracy
• predictability
• trust
• automation

Acknowledgments

The author is thankful to P. Therouanne for his help with experimental material.

Disclosure statement

The author declares that there is no conflict of interest.