title: Cognitive anchoring on self-generated decisions reduces operator reliance on automated diagnostic aids.
abstract: Automation users often disagree with diagnostic aids that are imperfectly reliable. The extent to which users' agreements with an aid are anchored to their personal, self-generated diagnoses was explored. Participants (N = 75) performed 200 trials in which they diagnosed pump failures using an imperfectly reliable automated aid. One group (nonforced anchor, n = 50) provided diagnoses only after consulting the aid. Another group (forced anchor, n = 25) provided diagnoses both before and after receiving feedback from the aid. Within the nonforced anchor group, participants' self-reported tendency to prediagnose system failures significantly predicted their tendency to disagree with the aid, revealing a cognitive anchoring effect. Agreement rates of participants in the forced anchor group indicated that public commitment to a diagnosis did not strengthen this effect. Potential applications include the development of methods for reducing cognitive anchoring effects and improving automation utilization in high-risk domains.
authors.affiliation: University of Illinois, Aviation Human Factors Division, 1 Airport Rd., Savoy, IL 61874, USA.
authors.forename: Poornima
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Madhavan
authors.forename: Douglas A
authors.initials: DA
authors.lastname: Wiegmann
mesh_terms: D000704:Analysis of Variance; D001292:Attitude to Computers; D001331:Automation; D003071:Cognition; D003073:Cognitive Dissonance; D003198:Computer Simulation; D003657:Decision Making; D003936:Diagnosis, Computer-Assisted; D004868:Equipment Failure; D006801:Humans; D007087:Illinois; D011482:Protective Devices; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D013647:Task Performance and Analysis