Assessment of operator trust in and utilization of automated decision-aids under different framing conditions

Computerized aids may be used to support decision-making and control in a variety of complex, dynamic arenas. For instance, such systems have been introduced into industrial settings as the means to implement automated control or support decision-making activities such as fault detection and recovery. Of interest in these systems is the extent to which operators utilize and trust such systems, in terms of their ability to successfully control systems, or the information or decision support they provide, particularly under conditions of potential failure. A theoretical framework to describe potential factors affecting these issues, and an experiment to investigate the role of failure cause on trust and system utilization, are described. Results provide some support for factors in the theoretical framework, and also demonstrated the use of an empirically developed trust scale.Relevance to industryAs manufacturing environments increasingly rely on computerized and automated systems for control and human operator support, it is necessary to understand the situational factors which could impact operators' use of such systems. This paper describes a framework which could be used to investigate trust in industrial automation settings, as well as a rating scale which could be applied.