Drivers’ age and automated vehicle explanations

Abstract

Automated vehicles (AVs) have the potential to benefit our society. However, lack of trust is a major barrier to the adoption of AVs. Providing explanations is one approach to facilitating AV trust by decreasing uncertainty about AVs’ decision-making and action. However, explanations might increase drivers’ cognitive effort and anxiety. Because of differences in cognitive ability across age groups, it is not clear whether explanations are equally beneficial for drivers across age groups in terms of trust, effort, and anxiety. To examine this, we conducted a mixed-design experiment with 40 participants divided into three age groups (i.e., younger, middle-aged, and older). Participants were presented with: (1) no explanation, (2) explanation given before or (3) after the AV took action, or (4) explanation along with a request for permission to take action. Results suggest that the explanations provided before AVs take action produced the highest trust and lowest effort for all drivers regardless of age group. The request-for-permission condition led to the highest trust and lowest effort only for older drivers. Younger drivers had the lowest anxiety and effort under the AV-explanation-after-action condition; however, this condition produced the highest level of anxiety and effort in middle-aged and older drivers, respectively. These results have important implications in designing AV explanations and promoting trust.