Psychological and psychophysiological effects of music intensity and lyrics on simulated urban driving

The main aim of this study was to investigate the effect musical characteristics (i.e., presence lyrics and loudness) in context simulated urban driving. Previous work has seldom isolated examined these both singularly interactively. We investigated potentially distracting effects processing through exposing young drivers same piece music with/without at different sound intensities (60 dBA [soft] 75 [loud]) using a counterbalanced, within-subjects design (N = 34; Mage 22.2 years, SD 2.0 years). Six simulator conditions were included that comprised low-intensity lyrics, high-intensity plus two controls – ambient in-car noise spoken lyrics. Between-subjects variables driving style (defensive vs. assertive) sex (women men) explored. A key finding no lyrics/soft condition yielded lower affective arousal scores when compared other conditions. There for HRV data (SDNN RMSSD). Exploratory analyses showed that, assertive drivers, NASA-TLX Performance lyrics/loud condition. Moreover, women exhibited higher mean heart rate than men Although some differences emerged subjective outcomes, not replicated HRV, which used as an objective index emotionality. Drivers should consider use soft, non-lyrical optimise their state during