Knowledge of and trust in advanced driver assistance systems

Understanding what drivers know about state-of-the-art advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS), like adaptive cruise control (ACC) and lane keeping assistance (LKA) is important because such knowledge can influence trust in and reliance on the automation. We surveyed ADAS owners (N = 102) and non-owners (N = 262), with the primary objective of assessing knowledge and trust of ACC and LKA, and investigating the relationship between knowledge and trust among drivers who have not received special training. The survey contained demographic questions, ACC and LKA knowledge questionnaires (assessing knowledge of capabilities and limitations commonly found in owner's manuals), and ACC and LKA trust ratings. From the knowledge questionnaires, sensitivity (i.e., knowledge of the true capabilities of ACC and LKA) and response bias were assessed and used to predict trust. Results showed that owners did not have better knowledge of system capabilities/limitations than non-owners, in fact, owners had a stronger bias in favour of system capabilities. For non-owners, better knowledge of system capabilities was associated with lower trust, and those who were more biased towards endorsing system capabilities had higher trust. Neither knowledge nor response bias was associated with trust among owners. Further research is needed to confirm our results with a larger sample of owners, but given that it is also impractical to expect drivers to learn and remember all possible ADAS limitations, it may be beneficial to focus training efforts on improving drivers' overall understanding of the fallibility of ADAS and reinforcing their role when using ADAS to support appropriate trust and reliance.