Transitioning to Future Air Traffic Management: Effects of Imperfect Automation on Controller Attention and Performance

Objective: This study examined whether benefits of conflict probe automation would occur in a future air traffic scenario in which air traffic service providers (ATSPs) are not directly responsible for freely maneuvering aircraft but are controlling other nonequipped aircraft (mixed-equipage environment). The objective was to examine how the type of automation imperfection (miss vs. false alarm) affects ATSP performance and attention allocation. Background: Research has shown that the type of automation imperfection leads to differential human performance costs. Method: Participating in four 30-min scenarios were 12 full-performance-level ATSPs. Dependent variables included conflict detection and resolution performance, eye movements, and subjective ratings of trust and self confidence. Results: ATSPs detected conflicts faster and more accurately with reliable automation, as compared with manual performance. When the conflict probe automation was unreliable, conflict detection performance declined with both miss (25% conflicts detected) and false alarm automation (50% conflicts detected). Conclusion: When the primary task of conflict detection was automated, even highly reliable yet imperfect automation (miss or false alarm) resulted in serious negative effects on operator performance. Application: The further in advance that conflict probe automation predicts a conflict, the greater the uncertainty of prediction; thus, designers should provide users with feedback on the state of the automation or other tools that allow for inspection and analysis of the data underlying the conflict probe algorithm.