Human Redundancy in Automation Monitoring: Effects of Social Loafing and Social Compensation

Abstract

The present study addresses effects of social loafing and social compensation in automation monitoring. Thirty-six participants performed a multi-task, consisting of three sub-tasks which simulate work demands of operators in a chemical plant. One of the tasks involved the monitoring of an automated process. Participants were randomly assigned to three different groups: (1) “Non-Redundant”: participants worked on all tasks alone. (2) “Redundant”: participants were informed that a second crewmember would work in parallel on the monitoring task. (3) “Informed-Redundant”: like the “redundant” condition with the additional information that the crewmate's monitoring performance might be low. Results provide evidence of social loafing and social compensation effects in automation monitoring. Participants in the “redundant” condition cross-checked the automation significantly less than participants in the other groups. This result suggests that human redundancy might not always be the best solution to enhance safety, but might even lead to riskier operator behavior.

Human Redundancy as Safety Measure in Automation Monitoring

“…Yet, it is not clear from their data whether this finding was related to effects of social loafing in the two-pilot crews or just the fact that both crew members were affected individually by the same automation induced bias in decision-making. More direct evidence for social loafing effects was provided by a study of Domeinski et al (2007). In this study participants were required to perform an automation monitoring task which was one of three tasks that had to be performed concurrently simulating basic demands of operators of a chemical plant.…”

“…Using the same experimental paradigm as Domeinski et al (2007) it was investigated (1) whether effects of social loafing could be replicated with participants who are better trained and work over a longer period on the task, (2) whether these effects are sufficiently strong to eventually raise safety risks by impairing the detection of single automation failures, and (3) whether implementing some sort of tracking of individual performance also in the redundant work setting would represent a countermeasure for negative consequences of human redundancy.…”

Driving with and without automation on the motorway – an observational study

“…When sharing monitoring and decision-making tasks with an automated aid (or other humans in a group) humans may reduce their own effort compared to when they work individually on a given task. The operator may perceive him/herself as less responsible for the outcome and, as a consequence, reduce his/her own effort in monitoring and analyzing other available information (Domeinski et al, 2007). 15.…”

Monitoring and Cross-Checking Automation

“…The present study addresses this issue and extends the research from Skitka et al (2000), Domeinski, Wagner, Schoebel and Manzey (2007) as well as Manzey, Boehme and Schoebel (2013). Skitka et al (2000) investigated whether the tendency towards errors of omission and commission were ameliorated when two instead of one single decision maker is monitoring system events.…”

“…However, in this study no direct measures of individual monitoring behavior were taken which made any interpretation in terms of possible social loafing effects in the team condition difficult. Domeinski et al (2007) and Manzey et al (2013) compared the actual cross-checking behavior of participants who were believed to work alone or redundantly with another crew mate on an automation monitoring task which was part of a complex multi-task environment. Individuals working in the redundant condition were found to reduce the number of crosschecks of the automation significantly, compared to individuals working alone.…”