Title: No tendency for human operators to agree with automation whose response bias matches their own

Authors: Megan L. Bartlett; Jason S. McCarley

Addresses: Department of Psychology, Flinders University, Sturt Road, Bedford Park, South Australia 5042, Australia ' School of Psychological Science, Oregon State University, 2950 Jefferson Way, Corvallis, Oregon 97331, USA

Abstract: Evidence suggests that false alarm-prone decision aids can engender stronger disuse than miss-prone aids, even when automation false alarms and misses are matched in perceptual characteristics. The present experiment sought to replicate this effect, and examine whether it reflects a tendency for operators to agree with automation whose response bias matches their own. Participants performed a simulated baggage screening task, alone or with assistance from an automated decision aid prone either to misses or false alarms. A point system encouraged participants themselves to adopt either a conservative, liberal, or neutral response bias. Target-present responses were faster from participants assisted by the miss-prone aid than from participants assisted by the false alarm-prone aid, regardless of the human operators' response bias. Neither response times nor accuracy rates, however, showed evidence of a generalised asymmetry in the effects of automation false alarms and misses.

Keywords: automation; human operator; use; agreement; trust; baggage screening; decision making; bias; payoffs; signal detection theory; SDT.

DOI: 10.1504/IJHFE.2018.092227

International Journal of Human Factors and Ergonomics, 2018 Vol.5 No.2, pp.111 - 128

Received: 17 Jun 2017
Accepted: 17 Oct 2017
Published online: 11 Jun 2018 *

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