Human–Machine Cooperative Decision Making Outperforms Individualism and Autonomy

The experiment reported in this article provides a first experimental evaluation of human–machine cooperation on decision level: It explicitly focuses on the interaction of human and machine in cooperative decision-making situations for which a suitable experimental design is introduced. Furthermore, it challenges conventional leader–follower approaches by comparing them to newly proposed automation designs based on cooperative decision-making models. These models originate from negotiation theory and game theory and allow for an investigation of cooperative decision making between equal partners. This equality is motivated by similar approaches on the action level of human–machine cooperation. The experiment's results indicate an added value of the proposed automation designs in terms of objective cooperative performance as well as human trust in and satisfaction with the cooperation. Hence, the experiment yields the same insight on decision level as already observed on action level: It may be beneficial to design machines as equal cooperation partners and in accordance to models of emancipated human–machine cooperation.