Arousal Responses to Regular Acceleration Events Divide Drivers Into High and Low Groups: A Naturalistic Pilot Study of Accelarousal and Its Implications to Human-Centered Design

We conducted a daytime naturalistic driving study that involved the same 19 km town itinerary under similar light traffic and fair-weather conditions. We applied a real-time unobtrusive design that could serve as template in future driving studies. In this design, driving parameters and drivers’ arousal levels were captured via a vehicle data acquisition and thermal imaging system, respectively. Analyzing the data, we found that about half of the n = 11 healthy participants exhibited significantly larger arousal reactions to acceleration with respect to the rest of the sample. Acceleration events were of the mundane type, such as entering a highway from an entrance ramp or starting from a red light. The results suggest an underlying grouping of normal drivers with respect to the loading induced by commonplace acceleration. The finding carries implications for certain professions and the design of semi-autonomous vehicles.