The impact of two computer-aided emotion regulation strategies on risky driving behaviors in a virtual environment

Computer technology has been increasingly used to enhance driving safety, however, as a risk factor for driving safety, how anger can be effectively controlled by computer technology remains to be explored. Thus, the present study tested the impact of two computer-aided emotion regulation strategies (expressive suppression vs. cognitive reappraisal) on anger and risky driving behaviors in a virtual environment. After anger was triggered, participants were instructed by pre-set computer recording segments to use the above two strategies for emotion regulation. During driving, their facial expressions were recorded by a camera. It was found that only computer-aided expressive suppression could effectively regulate anger and reduce risky driving behaviors (i.e., angular overspeed and lateral acceleration overspeed). These findings suggest that the computer-aided expressive suppression has the potential to reduce risky driving behaviors for Chinese drivers and offer insights for the development of computer-aided approaches.