Evaluating emotionalizing effects of active sound designs

Numerous results in the field of musicological research and traffic psychology research show that emotions can be altered by certain sets of pitches or sound characteristics, and emotions on the other hand influence our driving behaviour. Regardless, there is no research on how different artificial vehicle sounds could influence the driving behaviour via emotions. We want to create an active sound design that can alter the driver's emotions to increase traffic safety in certain driving scenarios. To evaluate which harmonic compositions and sound characteristics could be used as stimuli, we first extracted sound characteristics from different music pieces or sounds that have a proven emotionalizing effect, and generated new sounds based on said characteristics that also could work in the context of an active sound design for electrical vehicles. With these sounds, we conducted a subject study with 45 participants to evaluate if people perceive the intended emotions, and further determine the best sounds to use in future subject studies to evaluate their impact on drivers' behaviour. This paper describes the extracted sounds, their characteristics and psychoacoustical properties. Furthermore, it discusses the correlation between the sound properties and the perception of and emotional effect on the subjects.