Agent Reasoning Transparency: The Influence of Information Level on Automation Induced Complacency

Abstract

To understand how the information available to an operator and the transparency of an intelligent agents reasoning interact to affect complacent behavior, 2 between-subjects experiments were conducted. Participants supervised a 3-vehicle convoy as it traversed a simulated environment and rerouted the convoy when needed with the assistance of an intelligent agent. In Experiment 1 (low information), participants received information about their current route only; in Experiment 2 (high information), they received information about both their current route and the suggested alternate route. In Experiment 1, access to agent reasoning was found to be an effective deterrent to complacent behavior. However, the addition of information that created ambiguity for the operator encouraged complacency, resulting in reduced performance and poorer trust calibration. In Experiment 2, access to agent reasoning was found to have little effect on complacent behavior, and there were notable differences due to individual differences. These findings suggest that when the operator has more information regarding their task environment, individual difference factors may influence performance outcomes more than access to agent reasoning. These findings indicate some negative outcomes resulting from the incongruous transparency of agent reasoning may be mitigated by increasing the information available to the operator.

Open PDF

Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
Jun 01, 2017
Accession Number
AD1035306

Entities

People

  • Jessie Y. Chen
  • Julia L Wright
  • Michael J. Barnes
  • Peter A. Hancock

Organizations

  • United States Army Research Laboratory

Tags

Communities of Interest

  • Autonomy
  • Biomedical
  • Cyber
  • Human Systems

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Cognition
  • Cognitive Systems Engineering
  • Cognitive Workload
  • Control Systems
  • Human Factors Engineering
  • Human Systems Integration
  • Human-Computer Interaction
  • Human-Machine Interaction
  • Information Processing
  • Information Science
  • Intelligent Agents
  • Military Research
  • Psychology
  • Task Performance And Analysis
  • Unmanned Aerial Vehicles
  • Unmanned Ground Vehicles
  • Unmanned Systems

Fields of Study

  • Psychology

Readers

  • Team-Based Human-Centered Cognitive Task Decision Making and Information Performance.