Triggering changes in adaptive automation evaluation of task performance, priority and frequency

Adaptive automation has been proposed, where changes in automation are triggered based upon operator state to mitigate automation-induced problems such as complacency. This research sought to understand the effect of a weighted method, as compared to a method in which all tasks are weighed equally, when triggering changes in automation within a multitasking environment. The weighted method considered the priority and frequency of each task when computing a measure of operator performance on which to trigger changes in automation. Although overall system performance was not statistically different between the two trigger implementations, the participants with the priority based triggering scheme rated the level of automation change as more aligned with their performance and were less surprised by changes in automation level.