On the Independence of Compliance and Reliance: Are Automation False Alarms Worse Than Misses?

OBJECTIVE: Participants performed a tracking task and system 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: Background data revealed a trend toward nonindependence of the compliance-reliance constructs. METHOD: Thirty-two undergraduate students performed the simulation that presented the visual display while dependent measures were collected. RESULTS: False alarm-prone automation hurt overall performance more than miss-prone automation. False alarm-prone automation also clearly affected both operator compliance and reliance, whereas miss-prone automation appeared to affect only operator reliance. CONCLUSION: Compliance and reliance do not appear to be entirely independent of each other. APPLICATION: False alarms appear to be more damaging to overall performance than misses, and designers must take the compliance-reliance constructs into consideration.