How Do Automation False Alarms and Misses Affect Operator Compliance and Reliance?

Participants performed a tracking task along with a system and flight parameter monitoring task while aided by diagnostic automation. The goal of the study was to examine operator compliance and reliance as affected by automation failures, and to clarify claims regarding independence of these two constructs. Background data revealed a trend towards non-independence of the compliance-reliance constructs. Thirty-two undergraduate students performed a simulation that presented the visual display and collected dependent measures. False-alarm prone automation hurt overall performance more than did miss-prone automation, while also clearly affecting both operator compliance and reliance. Miss-prone automation only appeared to affect operator reliance.