Trusting Automation Technology for Safer Roads: The Effect of Shared Driving Goals

Automation technology can increase safety on the road, but only when it is trusted. As shared goals lead to social trust, and people exhibit social responses towards intelligent machines, we hypothesized that shared driving goals would also lead to increased trustworthiness and acceptability of Adaptive Cruise Control Systems (ACCs). In an experiment, participants (N = 61) were presented with descriptions of three ACCs with different automation levels which were described as systems that either shared their driving goals or did not. Trustworthiness and acceptability of the three ACCs were measured. Results indicated that participants judged ACCs sharing their own driving goals to be more trustworthy and acceptable than ACCs not sharing their driving goals. Furthermore, participants judged ACCs that took over driving tasks while providing information as more trustworthy and acceptable than ACCs that took over driving tasks without providing information. Thereby, these results help opening the road to safer driving.