A Comparison of Emotion Elicitation Methods for Affective Driving Studies

Advances in sensing technology enable the emotional state of car drivers to be captured and interfaces to be built that respond to these emotions. To evaluate such emotion-aware interfaces, researchers need to evoke certain emotional states within participants. Emotion elicitation in driving studies poses a challenge as the driving task can interfere with the elicitation task. Induced emotions also lose intensity with time and through secondary tasks. This is why we have analyzed different emotion elicitation techniques for their suitability in automotive research and compared the most promising approaches in a user study. We recommend using autobiographical recollection to induce emotions in driving studies, and suggest a way to prolong emotional states with music playback. We discuss experiences from a a driving simulator study, including solutions for addressing potential privacy issues.