Trust in Automation:
An On-Road Study of Trust in Advanced Driver Assistance Systems
Master’s Thesis

Appropriate user trust is critical in ensuring the acceptance and safe use of Advanced Driver Assistance Systems (ADAS). Despite the prevalence of ADAS on-road today, there is a limited understanding of how trust is affected by a user’s first contact with the system on-road. Participants without prior experience were introduced to a level 2 system and completed an on-road test drive. Utilizing a mixed-methods approach including Facial Emotion Recognition (FER), trust in the system was measured at key milestones.

Experiment Proposal, Planning & Design, Moderation, Interviewing, Data Science, Statistical Analysis

Methods Participants were screened and selected in order to maintain homogeneousness. They completed interviews and were introduced to the vehicle systems via an introductory video, in order to ensure consistency in the information they received. Abiding by ethical and legal standards, each participant completed an on-road test drive on a pre-determined route, along with the moderator in the passenger seat.
Verbal trust scores were captured at multiple intervals. Questionnaires were administered to the participants before and after the driving experience. Multiple cameras were utilized, including roadway and driver-facing cameras for later Facial Emotion Recognition analysis.

Coding in R

Data AnalysisQualitative data, including participant behavior and commentary was recorded and aligned with factors of Trust in Automation. Questionnaire data and verbal trust scores were statistically analyzed in R. Driver-facing camera footage was analyzed by a Facial Emotion Recognition algorithm in MATLAB and further analyzed with R.

Event specific Facial Emotion Recognition (FER) Analysis

Results Trust in Automation (TiA) scores increased in a majority of participants, and a significant shift in the factor Reliability/Competence (p=0.02) was observed post-drive. According to FER, participants with a gain in TiA and those with a loss in TiA post-drive, more frequently displayed the emotions happy and angry, respectively.
While emotional states varied greatly between drivers, patterns emerge that revealed several different types of drivers. Some showed high emotional variability while others’ emotional states remained more consistent. Driving events, for example, autonomous braking, had an effect on the driver’s emotions, giving insight into whether or not the vehicle was behaving as they expected in a given scenario.

Feature in AutoVisionen, Herbrand Mercedes-Benz Magazine

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