Experience of automation failures in training: effects on trust, automation bias, complacency and performance. Issue 6 (2nd June 2016)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Sauer, Juergen; Chavaillaz, Alain; Wastell, David
• Is Part Of: Ergonomics. Volume 59:Issue 6(2016)
• Page Start: 767
• Page End: 780
• Publication Date: 2016-06-02
• Subjects: Automation failure -- trust -- adaptable automation -- complacency -- automation bias; Human engineering -- Periodicals; Cybernetics -- Periodicals; Industrial management -- Periodicals; Ergonomie -- Périodiques; Cybernétique -- Périodiques; Gestion d'entreprise -- Périodiques; 620.8205
• DOI: 10.1080/00140139.2015.1094577
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0014-0139

Abstract

Abstract: This work examined the effects of operators' exposure to various types of automation failures in training. Forty-five participants were trained for 3.5 h on a simulated process control environment. During training, participants either experienced a fully reliable, automatic fault repair facility (i.e. faults detected and correctly diagnosed), a misdiagnosis-prone one (i.e. faults detected but not correctly diagnosed) or a miss-prone one (i.e. faults not detected). One week after training, participants were tested for 3 h, experiencing two types of automation failures (misdiagnosis, miss). The results showed that automation bias was very high when operators trained on miss-prone automation encountered a failure of the diagnostic system. Operator errors resulting from automation bias were much higher when automation misdiagnosed a fault than when it missed one. Differences in trust levels that were instilled by the different training experiences disappeared during the testing session. Practitioner Summary : The experience of automation failures during training has some consequences. A greater potential for operator errors may be expected when an automatic system failed to diagnose a fault than when it failed to detect one.