Mental Model Consensus and Shifts During Navigation System-Assisted Route Planning

A major barrier to effective spatial decision-making in human-agent teams is that humans and algorithms use different mechanisms to solve spatial problems, frequently leading them to produce different solutions. Incongruity between algorithm-generated solutions and human spatial mental models results in higher workload in mixed-initiative systems, and potential breakdowns in trust and team situation awareness. Although these performance effects are well-understood, few methods exist for quantifying and comparing human spatial mental models and algorithm-generated solutions. To address these problems, 27 participants completed solutions to 5 spatial planning problems, before and after receiving assistance from 2 navigation algorithms. A novel path mapping and clustering approach provided a means of quantifying consensus in human mental models, and shifts in those mental models after viewing the algorithm-suggested routes. Human solutions clustered into a small number of shared mental models. Individual differences in trust in each algorithm predicted acceptance of that algorithm’s route.