A Socio-Technical Approach to Understand Adverse Effects of Computer Assistance in a Very Demanding Operational Context

One major limitation for the acceptability of computer assistance to enhance human operators in an operational work position is the lack of a framework to identify interface context-aware services. The design of new supporting services for a work position in which human decision-making takes place under time pressure in a very demanding dynamic environment should consider the situational awareness of the human. Adverse effects can appear when computer visual/hearing assistance captures the human operator attention while attending concurrent tasks. A context-aware interface identifying the right time window and the right cognitive channel (visual/hearing) is a critical service to improve the decision-making of a human attending concurrent tasks in very demanding scenarios. This paper illustrates how a socio-technical simulation model framework paves the way for the design of a decision support system interface to lessen the cognitive workload of human operators in different operational conditions. A simulation model is described to better understand how and when assistance can be provided to improve the decision-making cognitive tasks. A use case with a pilot flying an Airbus A-320 aircraft illustrates the undesired effects that can emerge when the pilot attends cockpit AI-based supporting services.