Automation Use: The Roles of Self-Confidence, Trust, and Workload

Abstract

Discretionary automation, or the choice to turn automation on or off, is less studied than dependence on always-present (static) automation, even though discretionary automation is becoming more common in real-world environments. While the influences of dependence on static automation are generally known, it is unclear how they translate to discretionary automation use. Using a dual-task warehouse management paradigm, the influence of workload, trust, and self-confidence were investigated. Results indicated that higher trust in the automation than self-confidence in completing the task manually was a strong driver of automation use, whereas workload of a concurrent task had no effect on use. Implications of this work are discussed.