The impact of two computer-aided emotion regulation strategies on risky driving behaviors in a virtual environment

Abstract Computer technology has been increasingly used to enhance driving safety, however, as a risk factor for driving safety, how anger can be effectively controlled by computer technology remains to be explored. Thus, the present study tested the impact of two computer-aided emotion regulation s...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Jiakun Liu, Xingpeng Wang, Lei Zhu
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: BMC 2025-08-01
Series:BMC Psychology
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Online Access:https://doi.org/10.1186/s40359-025-03211-z
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Summary:Abstract Computer technology has been increasingly used to enhance driving safety, however, as a risk factor for driving safety, how anger can be effectively controlled by computer technology remains to be explored. Thus, the present study tested the impact of two computer-aided emotion regulation strategies (expressive suppression vs. cognitive reappraisal) on anger and risky driving behaviors in a virtual environment. After anger was triggered, participants were instructed by pre-set computer recording segments to use the above two strategies for emotion regulation. During driving, their facial expressions were recorded by a camera. It was found that only computer-aided expressive suppression could effectively regulate anger and reduce risky driving behaviors (i.e., angular overspeed and lateral acceleration overspeed). These findings suggest that the computer-aided expressive suppression has the potential to reduce risky driving behaviors for Chinese drivers and offer insights for the development of computer-aided approaches.
ISSN:2050-7283