Keywords

1 Introduction

According to statistics released by the World Health Organization, in 2004, 1.2 million people worldwide died in traffic accidents and 35 million were injured. According to statistics from China, there were more than 510,000 road traffic accidents in 2004, with 107,077 deaths and an average of 293 people per day. Almost every minute, people were disabled or even buried in traffic accidents [1]. In fact, what is more serious than the accident is the damage it causes. Therefore, reducing traffic accidents has always been a research topic that people have been paying attention to for a long time. The traditional method is to improve the safety of roads and vehicles by improving the traffic safety legal system, clarifying traffic safety responsibilities, strengthening government management functions, and promoting and using new technologies and methods [2]. However, with the continuous development and continuous maturity of technical means, these technologies that have greatly improved the traffic safety situation have been improved day by day. The space where traditional means can play a role is getting smaller and smaller, which is not enough to further effectively solve the problem of traffic accidents.

The study found that drivers who are prone to accidents often have potential, specific psychological characteristics, namely ‘accidentality’, making them more prone to accidents than the average driver [3]. Some psychological states can easily leads to traffic accidents, 1) blind self-confidence, ideological paralysis, unexpected surprise when there is an abnormality, panic, and helpless; 2) lucky, psychological, troublesome; 3) attention shift leads to decision-making rush, busy error; 4) proud arrogance, overestimate yourself, do not care about the abnormal situation, not easy to detect the danger; 5) tired of work, lack of concentration, slow response, low activity; 6) bad mood, abnormal mood swing, Will go to extremes and weaken control [4]. When the driver is under the anger, sorrow, and fear temperament, the individual’s sensibility and rationality are reduced, and the level of ability to observe and think is degraded. Eventually, under these bad emotions, driving is more likely to cause traffic accidents.

For example, many people in daily driving drive ‘Fighting car’ mostly come from some bad emotions. Under these emotional states, people’s analytical ability is restrained, their ability to control themselves is weakened, and they become unable to restrain their behavior, cannot correctly evaluate the meaning and consequences of his actions, and ultimately lead to accidents. Therefore, the study of driver’s emotional valence, driving analysis and decision-making ability from the perspective of psychology is a research hotspot, scholars should pay close attention to.

As drivers who play an important role in traffic accidents, their behavior will directly and indirectly cause traffic accidents. Therefore, research on driving behavior has been concerned since the 1930s. However, most of the early models only focused on low-level Behavioral control, such as process changes such as lane changes and vehicle turns [5]. As a comprehensive and high-level driving behavior research, driving cognitive behavior research has been gradually introduced since 1964, but because human understanding of itself is also in the simultaneous exploration, it is not profound, especially in depicting itself. Cognitive behavior was also limited by the research techniques of the time, so the research on driver cognitive behavior did not make an achievement in more than 50 years of work. Recent research has shown that psychotherapy can play a role in reducing traffic accidents, which in turn brings new opportunities for traffic safety research.

Based on the above research, the traffic problems around the world are getting worse and worse. The number of road traffic deaths in China is still rising, and the traffic safety situation is very serious. At the same time, with the continuous advancement of technology, new theories, research methods and technical means are constantly emerging. The research on driving behavior, especially the combination of computer science technology and life science research methods has become a new research hotspot. At present, research in the field of traditional driving behavior has made significant progress, and many research results have been widely adopted by the automotive industry. However, the research on cognition, emotion and behavior in the driving field has just begun. The research on cognitive behavior involves more subject areas. There are many research work worthy of development, and it has broad application prospects.

Therefore, this study will analyze the driving behavior, driver’s mood and road environment. It is hoped that the return to the driver-oriented, from the new perspective of the road environment and driver emotions, the driver’s cognitive behavior research, Provide a theoretical reference for road setting and driver mood adjustment for the future driving field.

2 Driving Behavior

2.1 Factors Affecting Driving Behavior

Driving behavior studies, including the characteristics of driving ability, the psychological and physiological capabilities related to driving tasks, and the number of road traffic accidents caused by drivers. The earliest research on driver behavioral models was the field-analysis theory of vehicles proposed by Gibson and Crooks in 1938. The overall situation of driving behavior research is: the research on the external performance of driving behavior has made great progress in these years, many driving behavior theories have been proposed, and many achievements have been widely used in the automotive industry; while the research on the internal mechanism of driving behavior is It has been valued by researchers, but its research results cannot be applied substantively, and there are still many work worth exploring.

In 2001, Vaa analyzed the theory and models of past driving behaviors and pointed out that cognition and emotion are good tools for predicting, evading and evaluating dangerous situations in driving missions [6]. Both Salvucci and Olivier have made progress in the study of driver behavior in cognitive architecture [7, 8]. The University of South Dakota’s Driving Research Laboratory’s main work is the study of quantitative assessment techniques for the psychological load of driving and driving-related activities, including driving simulation environments and real environments. Dr. James, a professor of psychology at the University of Hawaii, studies driver emotions, cognition, and perception movements from the field of social psychology. His research team observes his driving behavior and the perception of other drivers. When they perform daily driving tasks, they use the tape drive to record three aspects of their driving behavior, including emotions (feelings and motivations)., cognition (understanding and decision making), and perceptual movement (feeling, perception, and verbal performance) [9]. The results of the previous studies can be found that the driver’s psychological state is an important factor in driving behavior, including emotional uneasiness, cognitive bias, perceived movement incoordination, and emotional impulses.

2.2 Research Progress on Driving Cognitive Behavior

Traditional driving behavior research objects include steering behavior, driver workload research, safety behavior, and longitudinal behavior. When investigators conduct driving behavior studies, the types of vehicles used in the experiments will basically involve vehicle types such as cars, minivans, buses, trailers, and construction vehicles. There are researchers based on the definition of the driving environment analysis of the current environment, the goal is to develop driving ecological information (data collected in the real driving environment) analysis and processing of the models, methods and cognitive engineering tools, in order to develop driving awake The psychological model of perception uses the “inference-based experiment” method in the field of artificial intelligence to deal with the relationship between experimental data and psychological theory, and proposes a research program based on software simulation [8].

Based on the above literature, although the research on driving behavior and related theories are very rich, the research on driving cognitive behavior has just started, and it is still in the laboratory or research stage, such as Salvucci’s research on the influence of mobile phone on driving behavior in the car [10], and the aforementioned mention of Olivier Georgeon et al. Driving behavior modeling and evaluation of driving situational awareness tools.

3 Environmental Monotony

3.1 Relevant Theory of Environmental Monotony

The road landscape can be divided into an internal landscape (within the land area) and an external landscape (outside the land area). The internal landscape can be divided into an attraction-like landscape (a pedestrian’s viewpoint) and a series of landscapes (driver’s viewpoint) depending on the viewpoint. The landscape of the monotonic study of the scene can be considered as a series of landscapes, that is, the continuously changing landscape perceived by the driver during driving [11]. Monotony is related to the visual stimuli that appear in a specific environment. At present, scholars have not reached a consensus on the monotony of the environment, and different scholars have different definitions. As early as 1970, McBain proposed monotonicity when the stimulus did not change or changed within a predictable range. Oran-Gilad believes that monotony is a state that occurs when visual stimuli are a constant or highly repetitive [12]. Some scholars have also suggested that lack of alertness is monotonous, and less stimulation or stimulating changes lead to lower arousal [13].

With regard to environmental monotony, there are currently mainly Resource Theories and Dynamic Models of Stress and Sustained Performance. Resource theory believes that people can provide a certain capacity-restricted resource to handle the attention process. When there are not enough resources available to match the resources required by the task, the operational efficiency is reduced. Configuring resources at different stages of the task is the root cause of the decline in functionality. For example, when an overloaded driver maintains vehicle control, it may reduce the level of attention to the traffic environment [14]. Dynamic model refers to the concept of adaptability based on task requirements. When the load changes, the driver can maintain a certain level of operation, but at low load or high load, the adaptability is very poor [15]. The possible hazard of fatigue is that the energy required for the task may be compromised because fatigue reduces the scope and efficiency of the conditioning strategy. Adjustments to mission requirements are ubiquitous because driving involves rapid changes in driving load. Hancock and Weaver’s research found that, under normal circumstances, the demand for driving is lower than the driver’s best attention, but in an emergency, the driver reacts to an emergency by focusing all the attention on the emergency. In the case, this is the so-called “narrowing of attention” phenomenon [16].

3.2 The Influence of Environmental Monotony on Driving Behavior

In addition to Resource Theories and Dynamic Models of Stress and Sustained Performance, scholars have carried out a series of relationship studies, hope to explore some effective countermeasures to solve driving fatigue and stabilize driving performance. As the study by Oron-Gilad et al. suggests, driving operations are a function of driver status and environmental demand. The driver’s state is expressed by Fitness to Drive, which is a series of continuous streams of information or uncertainties that the driver must handle [17]. When the demand for the environment is high (for example, in a complex traffic environment), when the driver is not suitable for driving (for example, the driver is a beginner or the driving ability is reduced), the driver is in an overload state; when the demand is low (for example, In a monotonous scene), the driver is very suitable for driving (for example, the driver is experienced) and the driver is under load. Between these two extremes is the optimal operating area. In view of the monotonic nature of the road environment, it is currently mainly through the installation of anti-glare facilities on long-distance road sections. Wang Jianjun and others proposed that in the monotonous landscape, the length of a single landscape is recommended to be about 5 km, which can give the driver appropriate stimulation.

At present, China has no clear norms for the construction of the road environment, and the United States has clearly defined the location of traffic signs, the choice of information, the lane markings, and the use of various logo colors in the Handbook of Unified Traffic Control Facilities. In the manual, there are also chapters specially established for the specification of overpasses, which require planners to consider the information of the travellers in order to meet more complicated traffic data information and avoid overload and discontinuity of traffic sign information [18]. In 2010, Bendak S conducted a simulated driving test on 12 volunteers and conducted a questionnaire survey of 160 drivers to study the psychological impact of the driver’s driving process due to roadside billboards. The results show that roads with roadside advertisements are more likely to cause driver distraction and the risk of deviating from the lane [19]. In 2013, Liu and others conducted a pilot logo visibility study under real road conditions. The experiment selected a number of people to drive the experimental vehicle equipped with the eye tracker Smart Eye Pro4.0 and GPS to conduct experiments in the actual traffic environment, and then analyzed the different drivers (professional, non-professional) in different lighting and vehicle speed. Recognition characteristics [20]. In 2014, Costa et al. studied the visual response and characteristics of the driver’s opposite sign through a real vehicle experiment conducted by 22 volunteers wearing eye point tracking devices [21].

China’s urban roads and highways are committed to healthy and rapid development, which puts new demands on road safety facilities, especially the reasonable setting of highway safety facilities, and how to improve road traffic capacity, avoid traffic accidents, and prevent illegal driving. The requirements, the unreasonable design of the signs on both sides of the road will inevitably increase the probability of accidents and affect road traffic safety.

The monotony of “overcoming” road scenes is undoubtedly beneficial, and many studies have shown that road traffic accidents are more likely to occur on environmentally monotonous roads. At the same time, for the current trend of vehicle design intelligence, the study of the monotonicity of the road environment will also be of great benefit to the exploration of integrated multi-element driving fatigue detection system. In a monotonous environment, the driver lacks stimulating attention, the perceptual sensitivity to the surrounding things is reduced, and the thoughts are loosened or transferred to things that are unrelated to the road traffic and attractive to the driver, causing the driver to become overly tired and enter the fainting state. The state of sleepiness, so many scholars have studied monotony. It can be shown from the above literature that the definition of monotonicity is very long, but the research in this area is still very slow so far. The main reason is the lack of indicators to measure monotonicity, both in field experiments and simulated cabin simulation driving experiments. Much of the research remains in qualitative analysis, and there is a lack of methods and models for evaluating road landscapes from the driver’s perspective.

4 Driver Emotion

4.1 Driving Emotion Research

Emotion is the attitude experience of a person’s attitude towards whether an objective thing meets his or her needs. Everything that meets or meets people’s needs will lead to positive affirmation, such as happiness and affection. Anything that fails to satisfy the cravings of human beings or that contradicts the will of the human will cause negative negative emotions such as disgust, pain, fear, anxiety, pessimism, and tension.

A person’s emotions have an important influence on his understanding, will and behavior. For the driver, this kind of influence needs to be paid more attention. The driver is the receiver and processor of the information in the road traffic system. On the one hand, the driver’s emotional valence will directly affect the safety of driving, on the other hand, the superposition of individual behavioral states. It also affected the entire traffic situation. If the driver drives the vehicle under certain adverse emotions, it will directly interfere with the driving behavior and pose a threat to their driving safety. A large number of traffic accident cases also show that traffic accidents caused by drivers driving with negative emotions account for a considerable proportion of the total number of accidents.

4.2 Driver Emotions and Driving Behavior

In recent years, research on emotions and driving behavior has rapidly warmed up. Researchers focus on the effects of individual emotional changes on their driving behavior during driving. These analyses are important for a deeper study of the quantitative relationship between driver psychological characteristics and lane change behavior. In foreign research circles, many scholars began to explore from their respective perspectives. In general, they can be divided into two types, one for extreme driving situations and the other for general driving situations. The extreme case study is to focus on some extreme situations that are likely to cause traffic accidents or some of the more threatening driving behaviors. In contrast, it is more inclined to target specific dangerous situations, in addition to its own scientific theory. In addition to the meaning, it also reveals the threat of extreme emotions and dangerous driving, and also has a warning effect to the public.

For example, some scholars have studied the behavioral characteristics of drivers under anger, and found that individuals with anger are prone to aggressive and adventurous driving behavior. Drivers with low public self-awareness are more prone to aggressive driving behavior when driving anger [22]. Stephens and Groeger began with the anger of prolonged anger and the anger caused by emergencies, and studied the effects of anger on the driving process. The results show that the emotional valence of anger is indeed It will make drivers tend to be more dangerous driving behavior [23]. But it’s worth noting that the study also found that anger also increases the driver’s ability to handle emergencies.

Listening to music is one of the favorite activities of most drivers during their driving. Music is an important medium for their emotions. Pecher, Lemercier and Cellier use music to induce participants’ emotions. In the experiment, various price-effective music and no music are played alternately to participants, and then the influence of emotion on driving behavior is analyzed. The results show that happy music is the easiest to distract drivers, making their average speed drop unexpectedly, lateral control weakening, and sad music slowing down, but with smaller amplitude and better lateral retention [24]. In the study of the effects of emotional and emotional adjustment techniques on driving behavior issues, scholars explore the effects of changes and adjustments in mood on drivers. It has been found that although the happy mood will increase the speed of the car, the driving performance and the ability to deal with the problem will be greatly improved. The unpleasant emotion will make the lateral control weaken and the driving performance will be reduced. At the same time, the driver The emotional appeal for positive valence is significantly higher than negative and neutral [25].

Through literature review, it is found that personality, emotion, attention, self-protection awareness and other aspects are the main psychological factors affecting driver safety. The bad mood often causes the driver to illegally change lanes, overtake, car, speeding, etc., and even cause the driver to distract and increase the error rate, which has buried a huge hidden danger to road traffic safety. Therefore, studying the driver’s emotional factors and emotional behavioral characteristics will help to explore psychological countermeasures to effectively prevent traffic accidents.

5 Research Methods

With the development of economy and technology, the number of vehicles is increasing, and the road traffic situation is becoming more and more serious. Traffic safety is the direct cause of exploring driving behavior. Much research shows that driving behavior research can play a positive role in improving road traffic safety. The driver is the recipient and processor of the information in the road traffic system, as shown in Fig. 1. The behavioral characteristics of the driver with bad emotions will also have an impact on traffic safety. Accurate and efficient identification of the driver’s emotions, timely intervention and adjustment, can reduce unnecessary driving mistakes, reduce or avoid the cause Road traffic accidents caused by anger. The monotony of the road environment affects the driver’s cognitive load. In the case of too high or too low load, the driver’s adaptability to emergency situations is very poor, and it is impossible to maintain a stable level of operation. The study of the monotonicity of the environment contributes to the improvement of the road environment and the supporting construction of the interior functions of the vehicle, and jointly achieves the improvement of safety.

Fig. 1.
figure 1

Driver’s driving behavior mechanism.

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Through a large number of predecessors’ research, this study proposes that it is necessary to further explore the impact of the road environment on driver behavior, and whether the emotional valence plays a role in regulating the two, ho** to solve the driver-oriented emotional factors in driving behavior. And several problems of road environment cognition factors provide certain technical support for road traffic safety management, thereby reducing the occurrence of traffic accidents and increasing the safety of people’s travel safety.

At present, this research has developed research procedures and experimental methods, the experimental method and questionnaire method were used to conduct quantitative research on the driver’s behavior characteristics, and combined the interview method to conduct qualitative investigation on the special behavior and emotional feelings in the car. The driving simulation experiment was conducted in the Car-Human-Computer-Interaction Laboratory (Car-HMI Lab) of Bei**g Normal University. The study selected 60 drivers who were driving for more than one year, and the research was mainly divided into three stages, as follows:

  1. 1.

    Pre-experiment: material selection for different monotonous road environments

    The purpose of the pre-experiment is to screen out the driving scene that can be effectively perceived by the subject in the monotonous dimension of the environment. Based on the number of lanes, straight/curved sections, and the length of each section of the road, the simulated driving scenarios were set to three types of road environment monotony (High, medium, and low), see Fig. 2. Using the Swedish Occupational Fatigue Inventory Questionnaire (SOFI-C) to measure the subjective fatigue state of the driver before and after driving.

    Fig. 2.
    figure 2

    Schematic diagram of scene setting.

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  2. 2.

    Experiment 1: The impact of environmental monotony on driving behavior

    Based on the pre-experimental results, three environmental monotonous scenarios (high, medium, and low) will be set in the experiment 1, and 10 subjects will perform simulated driving in the laboratory. The research records the driving operation performance (speed, steering wheel control, brake depth, number of collisions), eye movement data during driving (average gaze duration and number of saccades), and interview data. Through the driving performance, eye movement data and post-driving interview results, the influence of different monotonous road environment on driving behavior was explored.

  3. 3.

    Experiment 2: Under the different levels of monotonous environment, the influence and mode of emotional valence on individual driving behavior

    In the second experiment, 40 participants will participate in the experiment, they were randomly divided into positive emotion group and negative emotion group, using Mozart’s G Major String Serenade and Mahler’s Fifth Symphony as emotion-inducing materials [26]. The PANAS Emotional Self-Assessment Scale (Chinese version) was used to test the emotion-induced effectiveness. Through the data of driving operation performance, it is analyzed whether there is a significant difference in driving behavior characteristics between different groups of subjects (positive/negative emotion).

    Finally, the study will analyze the relationship between driving performance and the road environment monotony by data fitting, combined with the interview material to explore the behavior characteristics associated with the scene characteristics, explore whether the emotional factors can temporarily adjust the driving performance of the subjects, as shown in Fig. 3.

    Fig. 3.
    figure 3

    Variable relationship diagram.

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6 Conclusion

The driving behavior problem is researched by the driver as the object. Due to the diversity of human characteristics, differences and influencing factors, the complexity of the research on driving behavior is determined. By combing the research of predecessors, this study proposes a new perspective in the field of traffic safety. By understanding the driving cognitive behaviors in different monotonous environments and the adjustment of behavioral characteristics of emotional valence, the driving behavior is studied at the cognitive level. At the same time, it also proposes a specific research process, paying attention to the psychological changes of driving behavior at the level of road cognition. Through the driving laboratory simulation, eye movement equipment and subjective interviews, the data is collected uniformly to realize the road environment change and the driver’s subjective feelings. Unified analysis.

In the next step, a series of experiments will be carried out. It is hoped that through the phenomena found in the research, it is possible to propose feasible suggestions for improving the driving performance of individuals in a monotonous environment, and to propose a design strategy for road construction and vehicle design centered on the driver.