Comfort Car

An intelligent interaction space designed for drivers who are bitter controlling their own bad emotions. This system includes three main stages, detecting, warning and regulating.

Background

Driving is necessary in many people's daily life. Every coin has two sides, driving brings convenience to us and also put drivers in danger.

There are several causes of traffic accidents.

Aggressive driving has been a problem on our roadways for a while, and it seems to only be getting worse. Incidents of screaming, rude gestures, and sometimes even violence are reported frequently on our roadways to the point where it has earned its own name: road rage.

Painpoints

Interview

Features of two groups of people

What are the unpleasant cues?

How do drivers deal with them?

Research

How to Mollify Drivers' Emotions ?

Music

Listening to music can positively impact mood while driving, which can be used to affect state and safe behavior.[1]

Olfactory

Emotionally valenced olfactory stimuli heighten the attention, especially among emotionally labile individuals, and that current emotional state influences olfactory perception in men.[2]

Affect Labeling

Putting feelings into words, or “affect labeling,” can attenuate our emotional experiences, which has been taken as a form of implicit emotion regulation.[3]

[1 ]Denise Chen and Pamela Dalton. (2015) The Effect of Emotion and Personality on Olfactory Perception. Advance Access publication March 23, 2005.

[2] Marjolein D. van der Zwaaga,b*, Chris Dijksterhuisb, Dick de Waardb, Ben L.J.M. Mulderb, Joyce H.D.M. Westerinka and Karel A. Brookhuisb. The influence of music on mood and performance while driving. aPhilips Research Laboratories, High Tech Campus 34, 5654

[3] Jared B. Torre， Matthew D. Lieberman (2018). Putting Feelings Into Words: Affect Labeling as Implicit Emotion Regulation. Emotion Review. Vol. 10 No. 2 (April 2018) 116–124.

How to Detect Drivers' Emotions ?

Machine Vision Algorithm: micro expressions

Many machine vision algorithms have learned to spot micro expressions that could exposes a person’s true emotions.

EQ-Radio: wireless signals

EQ-Radio sends wireless signals to detect physical features. Then algorithms could determine levels of arousal and positive affect.

Wearable mood detecting sensors : ECG electrodes

Infrared Scanning: temperature

Body Temperature of deferent parts of the body could reveal several moods of people.

Many wearable sensors detect defferent emotions by measuring slight electrical changes in the skin (known as ECG).

The ECG electrodes provide accurate data about emotions and it could also fit into the car in a natural way. Therefore, the following design focus on the ECG detector, making it a minor change to the operating space of vehicles with a good result.

Concept

Detecting

Sensing the driver

To detect emotions of the driver, a ECG sensor set into the steering wheel will be very enough and natural.

Sensing the environment

For the status of the driving space, a humidity sensor and temperature sensor beside the vent will collect enough information.

Warning

Interactive voice response

Voice interaction is activated by the bad emotions of the driver, including nervousness, irritation, anger, excitement, drowsiness and anxiety. This process helps the driver to realize his bad emotions and the bad emotion will be reduced based on the ' Affect Labeling'.

User interface response

Screen interaction is always showing the current emotions of the driver, both good ones and bad ones. The driver could check the status of himself and the adapting system.Cartoon characters are displayed on the screen beside the dashboard, so the driver or the passengers could check it at any time. Postiche animation will not be used to disturb the driver.

Regulating