Bimodal Trust: High and Low Trust in Vehicle Automation Influence Response to Automation Errors
DOI: 10.1177/21695067231196244
archive: archived pipeline: cataloged verified
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Summary
This study investigates how individual differences in trust influence driver responses to automation errors in partially automated vehicles. The research addresses the problem of automation-induced complacency, where extended exposure to reliable automation leads to overreliance and poor error detection. While previous studies often used subjective trust ratings or between-subject manipulations, this work employs objective behavioral measures and mixture modeling to examine how trust dynamics vary among drivers experiencing the same automation. The researchers conducted a driving simulator study with 24 participants using a fixed-based simulator. The experimental design involved a within-subject approach where drivers experienced three automated driving styles (conservative, moderate, aggressive) across six reliable drives. During these drives, drivers were instructed to press the brake pedal if they felt the automation was too fast and the accelerator if it was too slow; these pedal inputs served as an objective measure of trust, with less engagement indicating higher trust. In a final drive, the automation failed to stop at a stop-controlled intersection. The primary dependent variable was the response time to this error, inferred from brake pedal presses. Data analysis utilized regression mixture models to account for heterogeneity in response times, identifying distinct subgroups of drivers. The results revealed a bimodal distribution in driver responses, identifying two distinct clusters: early responders and late responders. Mixture models demonstrated that drivers with high trust (indicated by low pedal engagement during reliable drives) were significantly less likely to respond promptly to the automation error. Specifically, in the cluster of late responders, greater brake pedal engagement during prior drives was negatively associated with response time, meaning those who engaged more (lower trust) responded faster. Conversely, the cluster of early responders showed no significant relationship between pedal engagement and response time. Subjective trust ratings confirmed these findings, with late responders reporting significantly higher trust in the automation than early responders. The study concludes that trust in automation is not uniform but bimodal, leading to divergent safety outcomes. High-trust drivers exhibited complacency, failing to intervene quickly when automation failed, while low-trust drivers remained vigilant. These findings imply that strategies to mitigate overreliance should target high-trust individuals specifically, potentially through collaborative driving designs or feedback mechanisms that maintain engagement. The research highlights the utility of objective behavioral indicators for monitoring driver state and suggests that future automation designs must account for individual trust dynamics to ensure safety.
Provenance
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| Stage | Outcome | Tool | Model | Prompt | Attempts | Completed |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| discover | success | Crossref | — | — | 1 | 2026-06-05 |
| archive | success | canonical_url | — | — | 7 | 2026-06-09 |
| extract | success | cached | — | — | 2 | 2026-06-10 |
| clean | success | clean | — | — | 1 | 2026-06-07 |
| chunk | success | chunk | — | — | 1 | 2026-06-07 |
| embed | success | embed | Qwen/Qwen3-Embedding-8B | — | 1 | 2026-06-07 |
| promote | success | — | — | — | 1 | 2026-06-05 |
| summarize | success | llm | qwen3.6-27b-prismaquant | summ-v5 | 1 | 2026-06-10 |
| tag | success | vector_similarity | — | — | 15 | 2026-06-11 |
| verify | partial | — | — | — | 1 | 2026-06-10 |
Summary generated by qwen3.6-27b-prismaquant on 2026-06-10; verification: verified_with_issues.
Topics
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- trust calibration
- automation surprise
- trust in automation foundations
- automation
- automation complacency bias
- mode awareness
Information type
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- Empirical Findings: self report data