Predicting misuse and disuse of combat identification systems

Two combat identification systems have been designed to reduce fratricide b y providing soldiers with the ability to "interrogate" a potential target b y sending a microwave or laser signal that, if returned, identifies the tar get as a "friend." Ideally, gunners will appropriately rely on these automa ted aids, which will reduce fratricide rates. However, past research has fo und that human operators underutilize (disuse) and overly rely on (misuse) automated systems (cf. Parasuraman & Riley, 1997). The purpose of this labo ratory study was to simultaneously examine misuse and disuse of an automate d decision-making aid at varying levels of reliability. With or without the aid of an automated system that is correct about 90%, 75%, or 60% of the t ime, 91 college students viewed 226 slides of Fort Sill terrain and indicat ed the presence or absence of camouflaged soldiers. Regardless of the relia bility of the automated aid, misuse was more prevalent than disuse, F(1, 65 ) = 31.43, p < .01; p = .27 for misuse, p = .13 for disuse. Results are int erpreted within a general framework of automation use (Dzindolet, Beck, Pie rce, & Dawe, 2001).