Factors influencing trust in autonomous vehicles
LE3 .A278 2018
2018
O`Neill, Patrick
Acadia University
Bachelor of Science
Honours
Psychology
Autonomous vehicles will likely becomea major source of transportation. The trust of the population in autonomous vehicles will determine if individuals choose to use them. In this study, undergraduate students from Acadia University weregiven a question sheet asking their opinions on autonomous vehicles and how willing they would be to commute in an autonomous vehicle. Participants were then given an article outlining either positive or negative views of automotive experts regarding the safety of autonomous vehicles as well as a positive or negative news story about an autonomous vehicle. After reading the information article and the news story, participants were then asked to rate how strongly they trusted autonomous vehicles and how likely they were to commute in one in the future. It was hypothesized that: 1) articipants’ trust in autonomous vehicles would be affected by their familiarity with traditional motor vehicles ;2) Participants would be less likely to trust autonomous vehicles when given information stating these vehicles were dangerous, but more likely to show trust when they received the information sheet stating these vehicles were safe ; 3) Participants who had the negative information article and positive Sunday drive story would be less likely to trust autonomous vehicles. The results of this study indicated that participants’ familiarity with motor vehicles based on number of accidents and years driving did not affect their trust. Also, the type of information article participants received did influence their opinion and willingness to commute scores in the expected direction, although only the negative information article led to significant change in ratings. Participants’ scores were not influenced by positive or negative Sunday drive stories. Negative information has a stronger influence on opinions.
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https://scholar.acadiau.ca/islandora/object/theses:2719