'Strong and silent' machine agents: in need of improved communication and coordination skills

In recent years, the introduction of increasingly independent and powerful automation to a variety of domains has led to expected improvements in the precision and efficiency of operations. At the same time, unexpected difficulties were created which are related to breakdowns in the communication and coordination between humans and machines. Training can be modified to better support operators in developing an appropriate model of their system, or the communication and coordination skills of modern technology can be improved. One promising candidate for achieving this goal is the (re)introduction of multisensory feedback to support functions such as attention capture and guidance and to allow for parallel processing of information. Yet another avenue towards improving human-automation coordination is to better understand and utilize proposed and currently practised styles of automation management. We suggest that more empirical evidence is needed on the effectiveness and limitations of these approaches in the interest of making progress towards a more human- and use-oriented design of modern technology.