Measuring Perceived Agent Appropriateness in a Live-Flight Human-Autonomy Teaming Scenario

United States Air Force Test Pilot School students ( N = 6) participated in a study involving an agent-directed human pilot (“Blue agent”) in dogfighting scenarios against an adversary (“Red agent”). The adversary used three levels of difficulty as follows: low, medium, and high. An agent appropriateness scale was developed to gauge how appropriate the Blue agent’s behaviors were during each dogfight. Results demonstrated that agent appropriateness varied by Red agent difficulty. These results suggest that agent appropriateness is an essential element in human-autonomy teaming research. Practitioners should seek to develop agent appropriateness measures suitable for the particular context and technology in question.