From the Head or the Heart? An Experimental Design on the Impact of Explanation on Cognitive and Affective Trust
This work addresses a specific problem for automated vehicle designers and researchers by clarifying how explanations impact different trust types, though it is incremental as it builds on prior trust studies.
The study investigated how explanations from automated vehicles affect two types of passenger trust—cognitive and affective—to address a gap in existing literature that overlooks this distinction, with results expected to inform better AV explanation designs.
Automated vehicles (AVs) are social robots that can potentially benefit our society. According to the existing literature, AV explanations can promote passengers' trust by reducing the uncertainty associated with the AV's reasoning and actions. However, the literature on AV explanations and trust has failed to consider how the type of trust - cognitive versus affective - might alter this relationship. Yet, the existing literature has shown that the implications associated with trust vary widely depending on whether it is cognitive or affective. To address this shortcoming and better understand the impacts of explanations on trust in AVs, we designed a study to investigate the effectiveness of explanations on both cognitive and affective trust. We expect these results to be of great significance in designing AV explanations to promote AV trust.