If You're Angry, Turn the Music on: Music Can Mitigate Anger Effects on Driving Performance (original) (raw)

The influence of music on mood and performance while driving

Ergonomics, 2012

Mood can influence our everyday behaviour and people often seek to reinforce, or to alter their mood, for example by turning on music. Music listening while driving is a popular activity. However, little is known about the impact of music listening while driving on physiological state and driving performance. In the present experiment, it was investigated whether individually selected music can induce mood and maintain moods during a simulated drive. In addition, effects of positive, negative, and no music on driving behaviour and physiological measures were assessed for normal and high cognitive demanding rides. Subjective mood ratings indicated that music successfully maintained mood while driving. Narrow lane width drives increased task demand as shown in effort ratings and increased swerving. Furthermore, respiration rate was lower during music listening compared to rides without music, while no effects of music were found on heart rate. Overall, the current study demonstrates that music listening in car influences the experienced mood while driving, which in turn can impact driving behaviour.

Driving with music: Effects on arousal and performance

Transportation Research Part F: Traffic Psychology and Behaviour, 2013

In the current study, we aimed at exploring the influence of music on driving performance, arousal and mental effort while carrying out a monotonous car-following task in a lowcomplexity traffic setting. Participants (N = 47) were randomly assigned to loud and moderate volume music groups, and completed one drive in the simulator with music and another drive without music (control condition). In addition, during both of the drives we monitored driving performance and recorded participants' heart rate to track physiological indications of arousal and mental effort. Results revealed that listening to music had no effect on accuracy of car-following, and even had a positive effect on response latencies to speed changes of the lead vehicle and on lateral control. Importantly, arousal was higher in the presence than absence of music irrespective of the volume level, suggesting that loud volume music was not more arousing than moderate volume music. In addition, mental effort, which was inferred from the physiological measurement of heart-rate variability, did not differ in conditions with and without music. These findings indicate that listening to music does not impair performance in a monotonous car-following task, and might even improve some aspects of performance as a result of increased arousal.

The influence of music on mild driver aggression

Transportation Research Part F: Traffic Psychology and Behaviour, 2003

Automobile drivers were randomly assigned to either a ''music'' or ''non-music'' group. The music group listened to their favorite music, while the non-music group abstained from any music or talk radio, during their entire commute to or from schoolnwork. Using a cellular telephone, state measures of driver aggression, time urgency, and stress arousal were obtained during a single commute in low and high congestion conditions. No predictors of mild aggression were found in low congestion. In high congestion, a music X time urgency interaction was found. Mild aggression was lower among those listening to music but only at low levels of time urgency. Results are interpreted in terms of the distractibility and relaxation effects.

Effects of Music on Driver Behavior

WSEAS TRANSACTIONS ON ACOUSTICS AND MUSIC, 2020

The attention level of car drivers is affected by many factors. Music is one of the most importantones, but its effect is rarely studied. Music can affect driving style in both positive and negative ways, as itcan reduce fatigue but also increase the level of distraction or aggression. This article presents anexperimental investigation of the effects of music on driver attention level. Several measurements on avehicle simulator were done to collect data that demonstrates the relationship between music and theperformance of the car driver. The simulation measured performance under three conditions - relaxationmusic, rock music and silence. Additionally, the measurements were repeated in both fresh and tired states.The results are, in some aspects, different from our expectations - for example, relaxation music improvedreaction time but also correlated with a higher occurrence of inappropriate steering actions. Deeperunderstanding of how the music and noise affect the driver’s actions...

The influence of music on mental effort and driving performance

Accident Analysis & Prevention, 2012

The current research examined the influence of loud music on driving performance, and whether mental effort mediated this effect. Participants (N = 69) drove in a driving simulator either with or without listening to music. In order to test whether music would have similar effects on driving performance in different situations, we manipulated the simulated traffic environment such that the driving context consisted of both complex and monotonous driving situations. In addition, we systematically kept track of drivers' mental load by making the participants verbally report their mental effort at certain moments while driving. We found that listening to music increased mental effort while driving, irrespective of the driving situation being complex or monotonous, providing support to the general assumption that music can be a distracting auditory stimulus while driving. However, drivers who listened to music performed as well as the drivers who did not listen to music, indicating that music did not impair their driving performance. Importantly, the increases in mental effort while listening to music pointed out that drivers try to regulate their mental effort as a cognitive compensatory strategy to deal with task demands. Interestingly, we observed significant improvements in driving performance in two of the driving situations. It seems like mental effort might mediate the effect of music on driving performance in situations requiring sustained attention. Other process variables, such as arousal and boredom, should also be incorporated to study designs in order to reveal more on the nature of how music affects driving.

Effects of emotions on driving behavior

Transportation Research Part F: Traffic Psychology and Behaviour, 2018

Understanding how emotional states influence driving behavior is crucial for the development of advanced driver assistance systems that improve safety by flexibly adapting to the current state of the driver. However, studies on emotional effects on driving behavior have revealed heterogeneous results. This might reflect that emotion induction methods differed in the extent to which they distracted attention. In the present study, we investigated how positive and negative emotions affect driving behavior, and which of these effects are related to emotional effects on attention. We conducted a driving simulator study in which tonic states of anger, happiness and calmness were induced using a combination of autobiographical imagination and music. Participants completed two driving tasks which involved brake and gas reactions as well as tracking, and in which demands on dual tasking and selective attention were further varied. We found that emotions influenced driving behavior in these tasks in two ways. Emotions changed behavior either directly (e.g., by promoting aggressive driving), or indirectly by altering attentional effects on driving (e.g., by attenuating dual task costs). Our results demonstrate that emotional effects on driving are highly task-specific and crucially depend on attentional demands involved in the driving task and the emotion-inducing event.

The impact of music on vehicular performance: A meta-analysis

Transportation Research Part F: Traffic Psychology and Behaviour, 2019

Various studies offer insightful perspectives on the potential impact of music-listening on driving performance. These studies, however, present conflicting views on the effect of music as either hindering or enhancing driving performance and advance inconclusive claims regarding how and to what extent specific music parameters affect vehicular performance. In this study, therefore, we conducted a systematic review and meta-analysis of relevant studies. First, we identified experimental studies that measured the effects of musiclistening on driving performance through database searches using multiple variants including ''car", ''driv*", ''perf*", and ''music*"; of the 118 publications reviewed, 12 met the inclusion criteria for the current meta-analysis. Second, we coded independent variables-i.e., tempo, volume, instrumentation, familiarity, musical style, the music's source, and whether music was selected by the researchers or the drivers-and dependent variables-i.e., vehicular longitudinal and lateral control, driver reaction time, traffic signal violations, collisions, and driving scores. Third, we ran mixed-effects and random-effects models to identify both general tendencies and more particular trends related to the effect of music-listening on driving performance-driving performance is here understood as the combination of vehicle manipulation and road navigation. Consistent with anecdotal evidence, the results of this meta-analysis show that music-listening has a statistically significant detrimental effect on driving performance, specifically for collisions and longitudinal control. In contrast with anecdotal evidence, however, the results of this meta-analysis show a detrimental effect associated with music-listening at soft volumes and no significant difference in driving performance associated with tempo. The study's findings contributed to the development of a process model, and the concluding discussion offers suggestions for future empirical investigations related to music and driving.