Do concurrent task demands impact the benefit of automation transparency?

Area of Science:

• Human-computer interaction
• Cognitive psychology
• Automation and control systems

Background:

• Automated decision aids enhance decision-making but carry risks of misuse or disuse due to incorrect advice.
• Understanding how automation transparency affects user interaction is crucial for effective human-automation teaming.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate if increased automation transparency improves the accuracy of automation use.
• To examine this effect under conditions with and without concurrent task demands.

Main Methods:

• Participants managed uninhabited vehicles (UVs), assigning them to missions with automation providing advice.
• The study manipulated automation transparency and the presence of concurrent non-automated task demands.
• Decision accuracy, time, perceived workload, and trust were measured.

Main Results:

• Concurrent tasks reduced automation use accuracy, increased decision time, and heightened perceived workload.
• Without concurrent tasks, increased automation transparency improved automation use accuracy.
• With concurrent tasks, transparency boosted trust, decision speed, and agreement with automation.

Conclusions:

• Automation transparency's impact on use accuracy is context-dependent.
• High transparency can lead to over-reliance on automation when users are concurrently tasked.
• Findings have implications for designing human-automation teaming systems.