Agent Transparency and the Autonomous Squad Member

The present study investigated the effect of including information to support transparency, based on the Situation awareness-based Agent Transparency (SAT) model, in the interface for an autonomous agent known as the Autonomous Squad Member (ASM). In four different SAT model-based display conditions, participants used the ASM’s interface to gain information about the ASM and simulated squad’s status as they completed a route containing obstacles. Results indicated that participants had greater trust in the ASM and were most effective at maintaining situation awareness when the ASM provided outcome predictions (SAT Level 3), in addition to planned actions (SAT Level 1) and a rationale for those actions (SAT Level 2). No differences in participant workload, while monitoring the ASM, were observed between SAT display conditions.