Division of Labour and Team Performance: Human-Human Teams compared to Hybrid Human-Machine Teams

How teams “divvy” up or distribute task labour amongst agents can influenceteaming performance – for better or for worse. Human-Human (HH) teams havetypically demonstrated equal Division of Labour (DoL) strategies which benefitteam outcomes. However, the current understanding of DoL strategies HybridHuman-Machine (HM) teams adopt is not well understood. We aimed to explorethe DoL of HH and HM teams and understand how the DoL impacted teamperformance. We used an experimental platform, in which two agents work con-currently by each controlling a moving paddle to deflect falling balls. Participantswere placed into either a HH team or HM team Alongside team performance,we measured DoL using sophisticated time-sensitive analyses. With these measures, we found the DoL of HH teams was more equal than HM teams and thata more equal DoL was also predictive of better team performance. Addition-ally, HH teams showed less redundancy in their DoL than all other conditionsand less redundant DoL behaviour resulted in better team performance. Thesefindings highlight that there are differences in how humans Divide Labourwith Machine agents. These differences are likely due to the underlying transactive nature human agents can engage in and the lack of transactive nature andcoordination of HM teams. These findings highlight the need to re-evaluate current theories of Teaming Cognition and provide important basis for HM teamingpractice.