An angry driver is not the same as a fearful driver: Effects of specific negative emotions on risk perception, driving performance, and workload

Most emotion detection research starts with a valence dimension-positive and negative states. However, these approaches have not discriminated the effects of distinct emotions of the same valence. Recent psychological findings have proposed that different emotions may have different impacts even though they belong to the same valence. The current study consists of a simulated driving experiment with two induced affective states that are important in driving contexts, to investigate how anger and fear differently influence driving-related risk perception, driving performance, and perceived workload. Twenty four undergraduates drove under three different road conditions with either induced anger or fear. Anger led to more errors than fear, regardless of difficulty level and error type. Also, participants with induced fear reported greater workload than participants with induced anger. Results are discussed in terms of the cognitive appraisal mechanism and design directions for the in-vehicle emotion detection and regulation system. Copyright © 2011 ACM.