Taking a leap of faith: insights from UK first responders on instantaneous trust
Abstract Autonomous systems’ potential to instruct the public during real-life emergencies to foster instantaneous trust and compliance and their impact on rescue operations remain largely unexplored. To determine the requirements for designing technologies capable of delivering instructions in high...
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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Springer Nature
2025-06-01
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| Series: | Humanities & Social Sciences Communications |
| Online Access: | https://doi.org/10.1057/s41599-025-05016-2 |
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| author | Elena Nichele Sachini Weerawardhana Yang Lu |
| author_facet | Elena Nichele Sachini Weerawardhana Yang Lu |
| author_sort | Elena Nichele |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | Abstract Autonomous systems’ potential to instruct the public during real-life emergencies to foster instantaneous trust and compliance and their impact on rescue operations remain largely unexplored. To determine the requirements for designing technologies capable of delivering instructions in high-risk situations, we needed to understand the key communication elements for establishing immediate trust dynamics, ultimately fostering compliance and contributing to effective life-saving efforts. This paper adopts a participatory approach to curate perspectives from emergency rescue professionals in the UK, gathered through a survey, whose responses were analysed to identify the themes in the dataset and ultimately to elicit verbal and nonverbal elements and message delivery techniques to address the challenges to compliance in interpersonal communication during emergencies. Participants indicated that the adoption of autonomous systems for communication could positively impact rescue operations. They highlighted that verbal communications need to be concise and informative, while nonverbal cues must effectively reinforce verbal messages under distressful conditions. However, challenges such as accountability, adaptability, reliability, and affordability are still prevalent. We formalise a novel communication model designed to engender instantaneous trust between the rescuer and the rescued. We find that verbal elements in the model must increase the situational awareness of the rescued and sufficiently inform them of the context. In contrast, the nonverbal elements should foster credibility, consistency, reliability and positivity between the communicating parties. Based on the professionals’ responses, we further advance recommendations for the use of autonomous systems in emergency rescue scenarios in terms of increasing accountability and accessibility. |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj-art-f47bbca45b784e8892b4813a20956d5e |
| institution | Kabale University |
| issn | 2662-9992 |
| language | English |
| publishDate | 2025-06-01 |
| publisher | Springer Nature |
| record_format | Article |
| series | Humanities & Social Sciences Communications |
| spelling | doaj-art-f47bbca45b784e8892b4813a20956d5e2025-08-20T04:01:52ZengSpringer NatureHumanities & Social Sciences Communications2662-99922025-06-0112111410.1057/s41599-025-05016-2Taking a leap of faith: insights from UK first responders on instantaneous trustElena Nichele0Sachini Weerawardhana1Yang Lu2Lincoln International Business School, University of LincolnDepartment of Psychology, University of BathSchool of Science, Loughborough UniversityAbstract Autonomous systems’ potential to instruct the public during real-life emergencies to foster instantaneous trust and compliance and their impact on rescue operations remain largely unexplored. To determine the requirements for designing technologies capable of delivering instructions in high-risk situations, we needed to understand the key communication elements for establishing immediate trust dynamics, ultimately fostering compliance and contributing to effective life-saving efforts. This paper adopts a participatory approach to curate perspectives from emergency rescue professionals in the UK, gathered through a survey, whose responses were analysed to identify the themes in the dataset and ultimately to elicit verbal and nonverbal elements and message delivery techniques to address the challenges to compliance in interpersonal communication during emergencies. Participants indicated that the adoption of autonomous systems for communication could positively impact rescue operations. They highlighted that verbal communications need to be concise and informative, while nonverbal cues must effectively reinforce verbal messages under distressful conditions. However, challenges such as accountability, adaptability, reliability, and affordability are still prevalent. We formalise a novel communication model designed to engender instantaneous trust between the rescuer and the rescued. We find that verbal elements in the model must increase the situational awareness of the rescued and sufficiently inform them of the context. In contrast, the nonverbal elements should foster credibility, consistency, reliability and positivity between the communicating parties. Based on the professionals’ responses, we further advance recommendations for the use of autonomous systems in emergency rescue scenarios in terms of increasing accountability and accessibility.https://doi.org/10.1057/s41599-025-05016-2 |
| spellingShingle | Elena Nichele Sachini Weerawardhana Yang Lu Taking a leap of faith: insights from UK first responders on instantaneous trust Humanities & Social Sciences Communications |
| title | Taking a leap of faith: insights from UK first responders on instantaneous trust |
| title_full | Taking a leap of faith: insights from UK first responders on instantaneous trust |
| title_fullStr | Taking a leap of faith: insights from UK first responders on instantaneous trust |
| title_full_unstemmed | Taking a leap of faith: insights from UK first responders on instantaneous trust |
| title_short | Taking a leap of faith: insights from UK first responders on instantaneous trust |
| title_sort | taking a leap of faith insights from uk first responders on instantaneous trust |
| url | https://doi.org/10.1057/s41599-025-05016-2 |
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