Performance Expectations of Branded Autonomous Vehicles: Measuring Brand Trust Using Pathfinder Associative Networks

Future autonomous vehicle systems will be diverse in design and functionality since they will be produced by different brands. In the automotive industry, trustworthiness of a vehicle is closely tied to its perceived safety. Trust involves dependence on another agent in an uncertain situation. Perceptions of system safety, trustworthiness, and performance are important because they guide people’s behavior towards automation. Specifically, these perceptions impact how reliant people believe they can be on the system to do a certain task. Over or under reliance can be a concern for safety because they involve the person allocating tasks between themselves and the system in inappropriate ways. If a person trusts a brand they may also believe the brand’s technology will keep them safe. The present study measured brand trust associations and performance expectations for safety between twelve different automobile brands using an online survey.

The literature and results of the present study suggest perceived trustworthiness for safety of the automation and the brand of the automation, could together impact trust. Results revelated that brands closely related to the trust-based attributes, Confidence, Secure, Integrity, and Trustworthiness were expected to produce autonomous vehicle technology that performs in a safer way. While, brands more related to the trust-based attributes Harmful, Deceptive, Underhanded, Suspicious, Beware, and Familiar were expected to produce autonomous vehicle technology that performs in a less safe way.

These findings contribute to both the fields of Human-Automation Interaction and Consumer Psychology. Typically, brands and automation are discussed separately however, this work suggests an important relationship may exist. A deeper understanding of brand trust as it relates to autonomous vehicles can help producers understand potential for over or under reliance and create safer systems that help users calibrate trust appropriately. Considering the impact on safety, more research should be conducted to explore brand trust and expectations for performance between various brands.