EFFECTS OF UNRELIABLE AUTOMATION ON DECISION MAKING IN COMMAND AND CONTROL

Abstract

The effectiveness of automated decision aids used by human operators in command and control systems may depend not only on automation reliability, but also on the type (stage) and level the automated support provides. Automation can be applied to information acquisition, information integration and analysis, decision choice selection, or action implementation (Parasuraman, Sheridan, & Wickens, 2000). The present study examined the effects of variations in the stage of automation support on performance in a “Sensor to Shooter” targeting simulation of command and control. Independent variables included the type and level of automation support (complete listing, priority listing, top choices, and recommendation of decision choice) and the reliability of the automation (60% and 80%). Dependent variables included accuracy and reaction time of target engagement decisions. Compared to manual performance, reliable automation did not affect the accuracy of target engagement decisions but did significantly reduce decision times. When the automation was unreliable, under the higher reliability condition (80%) there was a greater cost in accuracy performance for higher levels of automation aiding (priority listing, top choice, and recommendation) than at a lower level (complete listing). The results support the view that automation unreliability has a greater performance cost for decision automation than for information automation. This performance cost generalizes across a number of different forms of decision-aiding.

Get full access to this article

View all access options for this article.

References

Crocoll

W. M.

Coury

B. G.

(1990). Status or recommendation: Selecting the type of information for decision-aiding. Proceedings of the 34th Annual Meeting of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society (pp. 1524–1528). Santa Monica, CA: Human Factors Society.

Jones

P. M.

Wilkins

D.C.

Bargar

Sniezek

Asaro

Danner

Eychaner

Chernyshenko

Schrah

Hayes

Ergan

(2000). CoRAVEN: Knowledge-based support for intelligent analysis. In Benedict

M. E.

(Ed.), ARL Federated Laboratory 4th Annual Symposium: Advanced Displays & Interactive Displays Consortium (pp. 89–94).

Lee

Moray

(1992). Trust, control strategies and allocation of function in human machine systems. Ergonomics, 35, 1243–1270.

Lee

Moray

, (1994). Trust, self-confidence, and operators' adaptation to automation. International Journal of Human Computer Studies, 40, 153–184.

Nygren

T.E.

(1991). Psychometric properties of subjective workload measurement techniques: Implications for their use in the assessment of perceived mental workload. Human Factors, 33, 17–31.

Parasuraman

Molloy

Singh

(1993). Performance consequences of automation-induced “complacency”. The International Journal of Aviation Psychology, 3, 1–13.

Parasuraman

Riley

(1997). Humans and automation: Use, misuse, disuse, abuse. Human Factors, 39, 230–253.

Parasuraman

Sheridan

T. B.

Wickens

C. D.

(2000). A model for types and levels of human interaction with automation. IEEE Transactions on Systems, Man, & Cybernetics, 30, 286–297.

Sarter

Schroeder

B. K.

(2001) Supporting decisionmaking and action selection under time pressure and uncertainty: The case of in-flight icing. Human Factors, 43(4), 573–583.

10.

Wickens

C.D.

(2000). Imperfect and unreliable automation and its implications for attention allocation, information access and situation awareness. Technical Report ARL-00-10/NASA-00-2.