Ian W, excellent points (#1195); you address the underlying problems.
Some further thoughts on these, but from a slightly different view.
The key point is what we assume ‘it’ be – “what’s it doing now” is generally automation focussed. An alternative is to questioning what is the aircraft is doing, what do ‘we’ want the aircraft to do (to achieve the objective), and what would the best means of achieving that; manual or auto. And if auto which modes, and are they suitable for the objective. The process is one of questioning the overall situation as opposed to accepting automation without question.
“What is it doing” implies the crew don’t understand, hold an inappropriate awareness, or are unable to relate current activity with a situation. Crews need to consider what aspects are required to understand the situation before choosing a course of action. Think before acting.
This approach would be radically different to the current mantra of ‘read the mode annunciators’.
It is impossible to gain a full understanding of what the aircraft is doing from a small set of two or three lights.
The industry has to turnaround the focal point of awareness; not autos, aircraft first, … Plane, Path, People; Aviate, Navigate, Communicate (with the autos), Manage (automation).
Older pilots may only have had one focus, the aircraft; extensive automation has turned this around, thus it’s time to rethink training and the mental approach to operations to accommodate these ‘automation’ changes.
“…automation surprise and cognitive overload” automation generated situations can be surprising, individuals will be surprise, but cognitive workload is manageable.
As above don’t attempt to determine the situation from lamps. Look at the instruments, the aircraft, the flight path, then consider automation - knowing what to look at and when – having knowledge of what is important in a particular situation.