Influence of in-vehicle music on driving: experimental results with a driving simulator

This paper reports experimental results of influence of in-vehicle music on driving to find appropriate music for safe driving. A subject drives a virtual car of a driving simulator consisting of a video game of a motor race, while listening to music which is mixed with the road noise and the engine sound from the game. The driving performance is evaluated with the lap time and the number of accidents of the motor race game. The influence is investigated with music volume levels, music tempos, and music preferences of a subject. The results show that appropriate kinds of music for safe driving are favorite music of a slow tempo of a subject at the similar volume level of the road noise and the engine sound.