Evaluation of an Adaptive Automation Trigger Based on Task Performance, Priority, and Frequency
Abstract
A significant Air Force research thrust includes increasing use of automation, creating the potential for the operators to become complacent and over-reliant on automation. To avoid operator complacency, adaptive automation has been proposed, where changes in automation are triggered based upon operator performance or other attributes. This research sought to understand the effect of a weighted method for triggering changes in automation as compared method weighting all tasks equally. In this work, the weighted method considered operator performance, priority, and frequency of each task when computing a measure on which to trigger changes in automation. Although overall system performance was not statistically different between the two system implementations, the participants with the priority based triggering scheme tended to rate the LOA changes as more aligned with their actual performance and were significantly less surprised by the actions of the automation than those participants with the non-weighted approach. The results of this study, combined with participant preference for workload based adaptations, suggest a benefit to the implementation of a hybrid approach. Future research could focus on task weights based on priority and operator specific threshold criteria, where automation aides are triggered once the summation of current tasks exceeds the given threshold.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Jun 01, 2013
- Accession Number
- ADA582146
Entities
People
- Crystal A. Miller
Organizations
- Air Force Institute of Technology