Command and control operator distrust of automation

Operator decisions in a command and control environment require an understanding of the situation; likewise, decisions require a confidence by the operator that the system will work in an expected manner. When situation and automation awareness is reduced, two behaviors can occur with operators: first, they may blindly follow recommendations for courses put forth by the automation; second, they may second-guess the automation unnecessarily, thereby defeating the purpose of the automation. In this study, a theory of factors that may influence automation trust is given, and two experiments are performed to test the effects of the proposed factors, first to test the impacts of distrust on operator decision time, and second, to test the benefits of configural displays to mitigate decision time impacts caused by distrust. Factors examined include perceived reliability of the automation, criticality of recommendations, and amount of justifying information given for automated recommendations. The results of the first experiment demonstrate that perceived reliability of a system recommendation can impact operator decision time to confirm or deny that recommendation. The results of the second experiment show that configural displays can aid in diminishing the degradation caused by perceived unreliability of the recommendation.