Agent Transparency for an Autonomous Squad Member: Depth of Reasoning and Reliability
Abstract
Agent transparency is an important contributor to effective human-agent teaming. However, agent transparency's effects on human performance when the agent is unreliable have yet to be examined. This report examines how the transparency and reliability of a robotic autonomous squad member (ASM) affected a human observers task performance, workload, situation awareness (SA), trust in the robot, and perceptions of the robot. In a 2 (ASM transparency) x 2 (ASM reliability) within-subject design experiment, participants monitored a simulated soldier squad that included an ASM as it traversed a simulated training environment, while concurrently monitoring the environment for targets. There was no difference in participants performance on the target detection task, workload, or SA due to either ASM transparency or reliability. ASM reliability influenced participant trust and perceptions of the robot. Results suggest that reliability may be a stronger influence on the humans perceptions of the robot than transparency. Robot errors had a profound and lasting effect on the participants perception of the robots future reliability and resulted in reduced confidence in their assessments of the robots reliability. These findings could have important implications for the continued use of automated systems when the user is aware of system errors.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- May 01, 2020
- Accession Number
- AD1125969
Entities
People
- Anthony Selkowitz
- Jessie Y. Chen
- Julia L Wright
- Shan Lakhmani
Organizations
- Oak Ridge Associated Universities
- United States Army