What You May Not See Might Slow You Down Anyway: Masked Images and Driving

Many theories of driver behavior suggest that unconscious or implicit emotions play a functional role in the shaping and control of behavior. This has not been experimentally tested however. Therefore, in this study the effects of emotive masked images on driver behavior were examined. While driving a simulator, participants were repeatedly exposed to negative or neutral emotionally laden target images that were sandwich masked by emotionally neutral images. These images were encountered across two different trials each of which consisted of 3-4 minutes of driving on a rural road. The results indicate an effect of the negative target images primarily in reducing the extent of familiarization occurring between the first and second experimental drives. This is evident in a reduced decrease in heart rate and a reduced increase in high band heart rate variability and actual traveling speed from the first to second drives if the negative target image was presented in the second drive. In addition to these findings there was no clear effect of the target image on subjective ratings of effort or feelings of risk. There was however an effect of gender, with the majority of the effects found in the study being limited to the larger female dataset. These findings suggest that unconscious or implicit emotional stimuli may well influence driver behavior without explicit awareness.

• Record URL:
  • http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22279549
• Authors:
  • Lewis-Evans, B
  • de Waard, D
  • Jolij, J
  • Brookhuis, K A
• Publication Date: 2012

Language

• English

Media Info

• Media Type: Digital/other
• Pagination: n.p.
• Serial:
  • PLoS One
  • Volume: 71
  • Issue Number: 1
  • Publisher: Public Library of Science
  • EISSN: 1932-6203
  • Serial URL: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/
• Publication flags:

  Open Access (libre)

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Behavior; Datasets; Drivers; Driving simulators; Emotions; Females
• Subject Areas: Highways; Safety and Human Factors; I72: Traffic and Transport Planning;

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 01363996
• Record Type: Publication
• Files: TRIS, ATRI
• Created Date: Feb 29 2012 7:21AM