Sebastian Zepf, Neska ElHaouij, Wolfgang Minker, Javier Hernandez, and Rosalind W. Picard. 2020. EmpathicGPS: Exploring the Role of Voice Tonality in Navigation Systems during Simulated Driving. In Extended Abstracts of the 2020 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI EA '20). Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, 1–7. DOI:https://doi.org/10.1145/3334480.338293

Abstract

 Emotional arousal influences focus, attention and decision-making, which are critical when driving. To help promote an optimal arousal level, this work considers a closed-loop navigation system that adapts its voice tonality based on the physiology of the driver. In a controlled driving simulator study, 18 participants were requested to follow the instructions of a navigation system under three different conditions: 1) "neutral" in which the voice of the navigation was always the same, 2) "congruent" in which the perceived arousal of the voice mirrored the physiological arousal of the driver, and 3) "incongruent" in which the voice of the navigation system mirrored the inverted arousal of the driver. Our results show that adapting the voice tonality can significantly influence subjective self-reported ratings as well as different aspects of driving performance.