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Humans have developed a prolonged and special relationship with their tools, which themselves exhibit the propensity to become ever more intelligent across the years. A 'smart tool' is defined as to representing any entity, machine, or device that can complete an informational, mechanical, or electronic work. This work explains the development of the Smart Tool Proneness Questionnaire (STP-Q), which is designed to measure an individual's propensity to use smart tools. Data collection was designed to (1) identify the psychological dimensions underlying smart tool use (2) establish the questionnaire's reliability (3) validity, (4) propose a normalisation, and (5) provide an English translation of the French original. The work therefore implements a reliable and valid questionnaire, sensitive to inter-individual differences regarding the propensity to use smart tools. Statistical analysis reveals that the individual self-reported propensity for smart tool use rests on three factors (1) utilitarian use, (2) hedonic and social use, and (3) proneness to delegate. From a theoretical perspective, this individual propensity to use smart tools might be considered key to our species development. In practical terms, measuring an individual's propensity to use smart tools can be of considerable benefit to the design of future smart tools in both professional and non-professional settings. Practitioner summary: The STP-Q, a self-reported measure of an individual's propensity to use smart tools, was developed. STP-Q offers practitioners a measure of individual propensity to use smart tools along three dimensions: utilitarian use, hedonic and social use, and proneness to task delegate. Individual results can easily be interpreted from normalizations that STP-Q provides. Abbreviations: CFI: comparative fit index; GFI: goodness of fit index; IFI: incremental fit index; ISO: International Standardization Organization; IRB: institutional review board of the university of central Florida; IT: information technology; MATB: multi-attribute task battery; NMP-Q: no more phone phobia; RMSEA: root mean square error of approximation; STP-Q: smart tools proneness questionnaire; TAM: technology acceptance model; TRI: technology readiness index; UTAUT: unified theory of acceptance and use of technology; WAIS IV: Wechsler adult intelligence scale.

A seminal work by Sheridan and Verplank depicted 10 levels of automation, ranging from no automation to an automation that acts completely autonomously without human support. These levels of automation were later complemented with a four-stage model of human information processing. Next, human-machine cooperation centred models and associated cooperation modes were introduced. The objective of the experiment was to test which human-machine theorie describe automation use better. The participants were asked to choose repeatedly between four automation types (i.e. no automation, warning, co-action, function delegation) to complete three multi-attribute task battery tasks. The results showed that the participants favour the selection of automation types offering the best human-machine interactions quality rather that the most effective automation type. Contrary to human-machine cooperation models, technology centred models could not predict accurately automation selection. The most advanced automation was not the most selected. Practitioner Summary: The experiment dealt with how people select different automation types to complete the multi-attribute task battery that emulates recreational aircraft pilot tasks. Automation performance was not the main criteria that explain automation use, as people tend to select an automation type based on the quality of the human-machine cooperation.