Exploring Cognitive Fatigue and Communication Latency in Human-AI Teams: A Preliminary Investigation

Cognitive fatigue is a decline in cognitive efficiency due to sustained mental demands, leading to detrimental effects in safety-critical tasks. To combat individual demands, AI teammates may be integrated to distribute complex task demands across members where cognitive fatigue has been shown to impair team coordination. However, prior literature has not examined how cognitive fatigue manifests within human-AI teams. This work empirically examines the effects of cognitive fatigue and the system constraints of communication latency in human-AI teams during a safety-critical task. A 2*2 within-subjects design was tested with cognitive fatigue (fatigue vs. non-fatigue) and communication latency (250 milliseconds vs. 1250 milliseconds). A two-way repeated measures analysis of variance suggested interaction effects for task efficiency and perceived frustration. The results suggest cognitive fatigue and communication latency to demand similar cognitive resources and non-fatigued participants to raise system expectations. Future research should validate these findings with a larger sample size.