Presenting system uncertainty in automotive UIs for supporting trust calibration in autonomous driving

To investigate the impact of visualizing car uncertainty on drivers' trust during an automated driving scenario, a simulator study was conducted. A between-group design experiment with 59 Swedish drivers was carried out where a continuous representation of the uncertainty of the car's ability to autonomously drive during snow conditions was displayed to one of the groups, whereas omitted for the control group. The results show that, on average, the group of drivers who were provided with the uncertainty representation took control of the car faster when needed, while they were, at the same time, the ones who spent more time looking at other things than on the road ahead. Thus, drivers provided with the uncertainty information could, to a higher degree, perform tasks other than driving without compromising with driving safety. The analysis of trust shows that the participants who were provided with the uncertainty information trusted the automated system less than those who did not receive such information, which indicates a more proper trust calibration than in the control group.