Modeling Decision Making on the Use of Automation

This paper presents a cognitive model that simulates reliance on automation using a line-tracing task similar to driving where an operator has to track a moving line with a circle by pressing keys on a keyboard (manual control) or rely on automation (auto control). An operator can switch between auto and manual control during the task. The success probabilities of each control mode were systematically varied. An ACT-R model to perform this task was constructed by representing reliance on the automation as production. The model performs this task through productions that manage the perceptual/motor modules. The utility values of these productions are updated based on the rewards in every screen update. We also introduce a meta-level monitoring the internal state of the model. A preliminary run of this model simulated the overall trends of the behavioral data, suggesting some validity of the assumptions made in our model.