Effects of the Source of Advice and Decision Task on Decisions to Request Expert Advice

Automation has become a deeply integrated aspect of our everyday activities. Many factors affect whether we rely on and comply with recommendations that we receive, from both human and automated experts. In the present study, participants were presented with advice from either a human or automated expert to complete one of two decision tasks: assigning teams to find human survivors or assigning teams to find and repair oil wells. Participants played 1 of 4 modified versions of the Search and Rescue video game and, on each trial, were asked to choose 3 of 12 locations to which to send search teams. Participants could request advice from a drone or human expert (confederate), depending on the condition to which they were assigned. Participants utilized automation more consistently than the human expert regardless of the decision task. We discuss possible explanations of our results and how they affect design considerations for automation.