Department of Psychology, University of Alberta, Edmonton, Alberta, T6G 2E9, Canada.
Accid Anal Prev. 2013 Jan;50:147-54. doi: 10.1016/j.aap.2012.04.004. Epub 2012 May 2.
Driver distraction is estimated to be one of the leading causes of motor vehicle accidents. However, little is known about the role of emotional distraction on driving, despite evidence that attention is highly biased toward emotion. In the present study, we used a dual-task paradigm to examine the potential for driver distraction from emotional information presented on roadside billboards. This purpose was achieved using a driving simulator and three different types of emotional information: neutral words, negative emotional words, and positive emotional words. Participants also responded to target words while driving and completed a surprise free recall task of all the words at the end of the study. The findings suggest that driving performance is differentially affected by the valence (negative versus positive) of the emotional content. Drivers had lower mean speeds when there were emotional words compared to neutral words, and this slowing effect lasted longer when there were positive words. This may be due to distraction effects on driving behavior, which are greater for positive arousing stimuli. Moreover, when required to process non-emotional target stimuli, drivers had faster mean speeds in conditions where the targets were interspersed with emotional words compared to neutral words, and again, these effects lasted longer when there were positive words. On the other hand, negative information led to better memory recall. These unique effects may be due to separate processes in the human attention system, particularly related to arousal mechanisms and their interaction with emotion. We conclude that distraction that is emotion-based can modulate attention and decision-making abilities and have adverse impacts on driving behavior for several reasons.
驾驶员分神被认为是机动车事故的主要原因之一。然而，尽管有证据表明注意力高度偏向于情绪，但对于情绪分神对驾驶的影响却知之甚少。在本研究中，我们使用双重任务范式来研究路边广告牌上呈现的情绪信息对驾驶员分神的潜在影响。这一目的是通过驾驶模拟器和三种不同类型的情绪信息来实现的：中性词、负性情绪词和正性情绪词。参与者在驾驶时也对目标词做出反应，并在研究结束时完成对所有词的惊喜自由回忆任务。研究结果表明，驾驶性能受到情绪内容的效价（负性与正性）的不同影响。与中性词相比，当出现情绪词时，驾驶员的平均速度较低，而当出现正性词时，这种减速效应持续时间更长。这可能是由于情绪刺激对驾驶行为的分心效应更大。此外，当需要处理非情绪目标刺激时，与中性词相比，在目标词与情绪词交错出现的情况下，驾驶员的平均速度更快，而当出现正性词时，这种效应持续时间更长。另一方面，负性信息导致更好的记忆回忆。这些独特的影响可能归因于人类注意系统中的独立过程，特别是与唤醒机制及其与情绪的相互作用有关。我们得出结论，基于情绪的分神会改变注意力和决策能力，并由于多种原因对驾驶行为产生不利影响。
