Effects of Automation Trust and Distracting Video Entertainment on Drivers’ Mental workload

With ongoing improvements in vehicle automation, research on automation trust has attracted considerable attention. We designed a three-factor 2 (trust type: trust, distrust) × 2 (video entertainment: variety-show videos, news videos) × 3 (measurement stage: 1–3) experiment. 48 drivers were recruited in Dalian, China, for the experiment. With a driving simulator, we used detection-response tasks (DRT) to measure each driver’s performance. Their eye movements were recorded, and automation-trust scale was used to divide participants into trusting and distrusting groups. The whole experiment lasted 30 minutes and was divided into 3 stages. Drivers in the trusting group had lower mental workload and paid more attention to variety-show videos. The findings of the present study indicate that automation trust not only influence drivers’ mental work load but also accelerate distraction.