Explanation and Coordination in Human-Agent Teams: A Study in the BW4T Testbed

There are several applications in which humans and agents jointly perform a task. If the task involves interdependence among the team members, coordination is required to achieve good team performance. Coordination in human-agent teams can be improved by giving humans insight in the behavior of the agents. When humans are able to understand and predict an agent´s behavior, they can more easily adapt their own behavior to that of the agent. One way to achieve such understanding is by letting agents explain their behavior. This paper presents a study in the BW4T coordination test bed that examines the effects of agents explaining their behavior on coordination in human-agent teams. The results show that explanations about agent behavior do not always lead to better team performance, but they do impact user experience in a positive way.