Human Trust in Other Humans, Automation, Robots, and Cognitive Agents

Abstract

Performance in many work environments depends on appropriate levels of trust being established between humans and their colleagues, as well as with various automated agents. Although there is a large literature on trust, it is diversified according to academic discipline, with little contact between or integration across disciplines. Empirical studies directly comparing and characterizing the similarities and differences between human-human and human-automation trust are relatively rare. Additionally, the neural mechanisms of trust have only been studied in the context of interpersonal trust and not human-automation trust. This panel represents an initial attempt to bridge these gaps. The panelists will discuss recent research aimed at characterizing human-human and human-agent trust in relation to one another and with respect to the underlying neural mechanisms. Finally, the panelists will discuss the design and training implications of these recent research findings.