Some cues are more equal than others: Cue plausibility for false alarms in baggage screening

Abstract

This study investigated the effects of cue plausibility in a baggage screening task. 120 participants had to indicate whether a prohibited item was present in a series of grey-scaled X-ray images of baggage. They were assisted by a support system, which pointed at the location of a suspicious object. A 2 × 2 × 2 between-subjects design was used. Cue plausibility for false alarms (i.e. how the cued object was similar to a prohibited item) and support system reliability were manipulated at two levels (high/low). Furthermore, half of participants were provided with a rationale about automation failures (RAF) to reduce their negative impact on trust and performance. The results showed lower performance and more compliance with automation suggestions when cues were implausible than plausible. The RAF increased the response time and did not improve detection performance. Overall, this suggests that effective (computer-based) training is needed to reduce the negative effect of plausible cues.