Cognitive Anchoring on Self-Generated Decisions Reduces Operator Reliance on Automated Diagnostic Aids

Automation users often disagree with diagnostic aids that are imperfectly reliable. The extent to which users' agreements with an aid are anchored to their personal, self-generated diagnoses was explored. Participants (N = 75) performed 200 trials in which they diagnosed pump failures using an imperfectly reliable automated aid. One group (nonforced anchor, n = 50) provided diagnoses only after consulting the aid. Another group (forced anchor, n = 25) provided diagnoses both before and after receiving feedback from the aid. Within the nonforced anchor group, participants' self-reported tendency to prediagnose system failures significantly predicted their tendency to disagree with the aid, revealing a cognitive anchoring effect. Agreement rates of participants in the forced anchor group indicated that public commitment to a diagnosis did not strengthen this effect. Potential applications include the development of methods for reducing cognitive anchoring effects and improving automation utilization in high-risk domains.

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