To (Dis)agree with Automation: Effects of Automation Levels on Trust Attitude and Trust Behavior in High-Risk Situations

When automation takes over many functions and is highly reliable, humans often insufficiently monitor the correct system functioning. We investigated this phenomenon by introducing automation at the action implementation stage in two conditions: Participants working with monitored automation could veto the automation, whereas participants working with consensual automation had to agree with the automation. Based on neuropsychological research on cognitive dissonance, we expected that participants would devote more resources to checking the monitored automation compared to participants working with consensual automation, because the justification of a potential disagreement (veto) should be based on sufficient information. Additionally, we examined effects of risk on trust attitude and behavior when participants worked in virtual reality at either 0.5- or 70-meters altitude. We found a decrease in dissonance discomfort and an increase in self-reported trust across experimental blocks. At high risk, participants monitored automation significantly more. However, no main effects of automation were found.