Human Performance Consequences of Stages and Levels of Automation

Abstract

Findings contribute to the body of research on adequate function allocation by providing an overall picture through quantitatively combining data from a variety of studies across varying domains.

The Interaction Between Humans and Autonomous Agents

“…The negative consequences of disconnecting humans from direct guidance and control are primarily concentrated in three areas which have been identified in different application contexts: insufficient or excessive trust in the automation [9], the loss of manual and cognitive capabilities [10] and difficulties in maintaining an appropriate degree of situation and system awareness [11]. An inappropriate degree of confidence in the system can result in insufficient monitoring or use of automated systems.…”

Humans and Intelligent Vehicles: The Hope, the Help, and the Harm

“…In particular, a vehicle equipped with Level 2 automation allows the driver to take both hands off the wheel and feet off the pedals, at least for brief periods of time (that time depending on the manufacturer). As the level of automation which takes over control of the vehicle increases, the chance for monitoring failures also increases [30]. But this does not seem to be true of increases in automation which support information acquisition.…”

“…But such is not the case if control over both of these is relinquished. Thus, despite instructions to monitor the roadway, there is every likelihood that the driver will fail to monitor adequately and all three necessary ingredients of situation awareness will suffer [30], thereby increasing the likelihood of a crash.…”

21st century trucking: A trajectory for ergonomics and road freight

“…Degree of automation characterises the task's allocation of function, by defining the contribution of technologies in terms of level of automation (low, moderate, or high), and across each of the four stages of information processing (information acquisition, information analysis, decision & action selection, and action implementation; (Onnasch, et al, 2013). This analysis was documented for each identified technology, and then aggregated for each time step (as depicted in Figures 1-3).…”

“…The metaanalysis carried out by Onnasch et al (2013) found that this effect is exacerbated in certain system designs, and a performance step change occurs when the design of automation shifts from allocation of information analysis, to decision and action selection. From the analysis of identified technologies, 'information analysis' was found to be the stage of information processing with the largest increase in allocation to technology between 2020 and 2050, followed closely by 'action selection'.…”