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Old Dominion University

The Effect of Differing Degrees of Automation and Reliability on Simulated Luggage Screening Performance

Abstract

dc:description.abstract

<p>The present work examined the effects of two types of decision support systems in a simulated luggage screening task: An input aid and an output aid. An input aid supports an operator’s information gathering. An output aid supports decision making and action selection. A Time-Accuracy Function (TAF) analysis was applied to isolate processing time from performance asymptote, which conventional performance measures such as sensitivity and response time do not distinguish one from the other. Sixty participants performed a luggage screening task unaided (manual condition), with the assistance of an input aid (spatial aid), and with the assistance of an output aid (decision aid) across different stimulus exposure durations of 250 ms, 500 ms, 1000 ms, 2000 ms, or 3000 ms. Participants were asked to judge the presence of a knife in each of the bags and either “stop” the bag or “pass” the bag. Reliability of the automated aids was 90% in Experiment 1 and 60% in Experiment 2. Experiment 1 showed that sensitivity increased with the assistance of both the input and the output aids as the stimulus exposure duration increased. The performance improvement was greater for the input aid than the output aid condition. Though processing times did not differ across the conditions, asymptotic performance level was higher when participants had the assistance of the input aid compared to the unaided condition. Experiment 2 and cross-experimental analysis demonstrated that the unreliable aids eliminated the benefit of the reliable aids. TAF analysis further showed that, although asymptotic performance can differ, processing times can remain constant regardless of DOA. The results imply that the input aid elevates asymptotic performance without influencing processing times, perhaps allowing operators to crosscheck their decisions within the restricted area of the search field identified by the aid. The present findings are inconsistent with the lumberjack hypothesis (Onnasch et al., 2013) and future research directions are provided.</p>

Degree

thesis:*
Name thesis:degree_name
Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)
Level thesis:degree_level
Dissertation
Discipline thesis:degree_discipline
Psychology
Year dc:date.available
2019

Author and committee

dc:creator, dc:contributor.*
Author dc:creator
  • Liechty, Molly M.
Contributors dc:contributor
  • Yusuke Yamani
  • Holly Handley
  • Jing Chen

Subjects

dc:subject × 6

Rights

dc:rights
Statement dc:rights
  • <p>In Copyright. URI: <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/">http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/</a> This Item is protected by copyright and/or related rights. You are free to use this Item in any way that is permitted by the copyright and related rights legislation that applies to your use. For other uses you need to obtain permission from the rights-holder(s).</p>

Identifiers

dc:identifier.*
Identifier
9781392612538
OAI identifier oai:identifier
oai:digitalcommons.odu.edu:psychology_etds-1333

Chain of custody

source
Harvested from
Old Dominion University
Base URL
digitalcommons.odu.edu/do/oai/
Last updated
2026-07-24
Source record
OAI-PMH GetRecord
citation

Liechty, Molly M.. The Effect of Differing Degrees of Automation and Reliability on Simulated Luggage Screening Performance. Dissertation thesis, 2019. https://digitalcommons.odu.edu/psychology_etds/333