Research Project Summary

The current study examines how people can complete a skilled cognitive task with automation technology without becoming too dependent on it. The project will focus on people’s persistence in troubleshooting a technological failure and how they use cognitive offloading to improve performance. To investigate, we are developing an experiment in which we will manipulate how people approach using a digital assistant to help them with a task. We will measure task performance with the digital assistant, as well as performance on a later task for which the digital assistant is no longer available. The motivation is to assist people who regularly collaborate with automated tools, like pilots and medical experts, to build knowledge and maintain skills while taking advantage of digital tools for assistance. 

Video

Watch Miriam discuss their research project.