Effect of Imperfect Information and Action Automation on Attentional Allocation

Abstract

Previous research has suggested that information and action automation stages do not imply the same consequences for human performance in the supervision of automated systems. Still, only a few studies have simultaneously investigated these stages. When information and action automation are reliable, both can support performance. However, with unreliable aids, the literature has suggested that action automation tends to be more detrimental than information automation. This study aimed to assess the contributions of imperfect information and action automation on attentional allocation and to investigate a potential monitoring inefficiency in a multitasking environment. Participants (n = 96) completed three Multi-Attribute Task Battery (MATB) tasks. A monitoring task was automated with two types of automation (action or information) of four reliabilities each (0%; 56.25%; 87.5%; 100%). Ocular behaviors and performance were assessed. Results show that reliability of information automation influenced visual resource allocation. When information automation was the most reliable, participants spent the least amount of time sampling the monitoring task. Finally, the reliability of action automation triggered no effect on performance or cumulative dwell times. Our results suggest that in complex multitasking situations where information and action automation occurred simultaneously, participants allocated fewer visual resources to automated task with increased information automation reliability. Similarly, their performance was better only with increased information automation.