Towards trustworthy automation: User interfaces that convey internal and external awareness

Suppose we are given an autonomous vehicle that has limitations, meaning that it may need to transfer control back to the human driver to guarantee safety in certain situations. This paper presents work on designing a user interface to assist this hand off by considering the effects of the expression of internal and external awareness. Internal awareness is the concept of knowing whether or not the system is confident in its ability to handle the current situation. External awareness is the concept of being able to identify the limitations as the car is driving in terms of situational anomalies. We conduct a user study to examine what information should be presented to the driver, as well as the effects of expressing these levels of awareness on the driver's situational awareness and trust in the automation. We found that expressing uncertainty about the autonomous system (internal awareness) had an adverse effect on driver experience and performance. However, by effectively conveying the automation's external awareness on the anomaly, improvements were found in the driver's situational awareness, increased trust in the system, and performance after the transfer of control.