Measurement of Trust in Automation: A Narrative Review and Reference Guide

Front Psychol. 2021 Oct 19:12:604977. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2021.604977. eCollection 2021.

Abstract

With the rise of automated and autonomous agents, research examining Trust in Automation (TiA) has attracted considerable attention over the last few decades. Trust is a rich and complex construct which has sparked a multitude of measures and approaches to study and understand it. This comprehensive narrative review addresses known methods that have been used to capture TiA. We examined measurements deployed in existing empirical works, categorized those measures into self-report, behavioral, and physiological indices, and examined them within the context of an existing model of trust. The resulting work provides a reference guide for researchers, providing a list of available TiA measurement methods along with the model-derived constructs that they capture including judgments of trustworthiness, trust attitudes, and trusting behaviors. The article concludes with recommendations on how to improve the current state of TiA measurement.

Keywords: automation; autonomous; behavioral; measurement; measures; physiological; self-report; trust.

Publication types

  • Review