Comfort Design Through Music and Emotion: Effects of Passengers' Activities on Comfort

Comfort experiences are not caused by a single factor, but are the result of diverse components such as postures, cognitive- and emotional experiences, as well as a person’s activity. The present empirical study investigated the experienced comfort of car passengers in the rear seat. We varied typical car passengers’ activities such as listening to music, working, and looking out the window. Dependent variables were the passenger’s comfort rating, his emotional valence- and arousal-related experience, his heart rate, and his seating position. The results (N = 23/16) showed that music positively influences comfort experiences. Moreover, correlation analysis between the dependent variables showed that comfort was significantly correlated only to the positive emotional valence component, and not to more physiological components such as emotional arousal, heart rate or seating position. The results suggest that car designers can improve the comfort of rear passengers by focussing on music and emotion design in contrast to the more conventional approach of physical ergonomics.