Psychological Empowerment on the Streets: Designing and Validating Multisensory Experiences in Simulated Autonomous...

Area of Science:

• Human-Computer Interaction
• Automotive Engineering
• Neuroscience

Background:

• Automated vehicles are transforming driving into a multisensory experience.
• Integrating music and haptics can enhance user engagement and emotional responses in vehicles.

Purpose of the Study:

• To develop and evaluate multisensory solutions combining music and vibrotactile stimulation for different autonomous driving contexts.
• To investigate the impact of vibrotactile enhancement on user emotional responses during simulated autonomous driving.

Main Methods:

• Eighteen participants experienced simulated autonomous driving scenarios with music-only and music-with-vibration modalities.
• Emotional responses were measured using Self-Assessment Manikin (SAM) and electroencephalography (EEG).
• Three driving contexts (safe, engagement, entertainment) were paired with distinct music-vibration solutions.

Main Results:

• Music with vibration (MV) significantly increased pleasure and arousal compared to music only (M) across driving contexts (p < 0.05).
• Behavioral data revealed distinct emotional profiles for each driving context-solution pair (p < 0.001).
• EEG data confirmed modality effects on pleasure and arousal, though context-specific effects were not significant after baseline correction.

Conclusions:

• Vibrotactile enhancement consistently improves emotional benefits in autonomous driving, regardless of the driving context.
• Multisensory integration of music and haptics offers a promising avenue for enhancing the automated driving experience.
• Further research into optimizing music and vibrotactile parameters can further refine in-car experiences.