The Interaction Gap: A Step Toward Understanding Trust in Autonomous Vehicles Between Encounters

Shared autonomous vehicles (SAVs) will be introduced in greater numbers over the coming decade. Due to rapid advances in shared mobility and the slower development of fully autonomous vehicles (AVs), SAVs will likely be deployed before privately-owned AVs. Moreover, existing shared mobility services are transitioning their vehicle fleets toward those with increasingly higher levels of driving automation. Consequently, people who use shared vehicles on an “as needed” basis will have infrequent interactions with automated driving, thereby experiencing interaction gaps. Using human trust data of 25 participants, we show that interaction gaps can affect human trust in automated driving. Participants engaged in a simulator study consisting of two interactions separated by a one-week interaction gap. A moderate, inverse correlation was found between the change in trust during the initial interaction and the interaction gap, suggesting people “forget” some of their gained trust or distrust in automation during an interaction gap.