Trustbusting in Automation Use

The use of automated decision aids is increasing. Unfortunately, the productivity of human-automated work teams is not always superior to that of the human operator or the computer working alone. Parasuraman and Riley's (1997) review indicates that human operators often overly rely on or underutilize automated aids. Several researchers have suggested that trust in the automated aid affects automation use (e.g., Dzindolet, Pierce, Beck, & Dawe's (1999) Framework of Automation Use). In two studies, we attempted to affect human operators' trust in an automated decision-aid by providing information to counter their expectations of near-perfect performances by the automated aid. Through various procedures, we were successful in encouraging human operators to appropriately rely on an automated decision aid.