Driving and Music: Under the Influence
We all are familiar with the feeling; while we drive through an unfamiliar city or neighborhood, we cease singing and turn down the radio or aux so that we can read signs better. Was the music too loud to see and identify the right turn to make? Though this may seem nonsensical after a few seconds of thought, a recent study by Dr. Warren Brodsky of the Music Science Lab at the Ben-Gurion University of the Negev somewhat justifies drivers’ efforts to navigate without such music-induced “blindness”. Their results showed that, as higher effort was required by a primary driving task, drivers performed significantly worse in secondary vocal and percussive tasks. While the research may read in such a way that more readily implicates driving as an obstacle to singing our favorite tunes to our fullest potential, the results do show that performing while driving requires more attention than we might hope. Taking this into consideration, is it wise to continue to partake in one-person concerts on our Sunday drives? And to what degree should “In-car Music” be regulated by governments to protect driver safety?
Considering that one of the most popular places for listening to music has become the car over the past few decades, it is no surprise that drivers are naturally drawn to listening, singing, and drumming along to their favorite tunes. Plus, how else would we beat the dreaded highway hypnosis, luring us to sleep on long, unchanging drives? Certain studies have made the claim that in-car music increases driver arousal, allowing for more focused concentration on driving tasks. Furthermore, while demanding conversations over the phone or with passengers might distract drivers significantly, surveys have indicated that most drivers feel comfortable freely reducing attention to background music as need be. Based on these evaluations, in-car music serves as a tool to increase arousal during otherwise minimally stimulating drives, while allowing the driver the freedom to stop and continue their engagement with music if needed.
Conversely, antagonizing evidence indicates that listening to well-liked music, in fact, worsens driving errors, traffic violations, and driver aggressiveness, contributing overall to increased driver accidents and near-crashes. These conclusions grow more concerning when we consider that these findings were observed in individuals who were only passively listening to music. Considering such dangerous implications of music simply playing in the background, what might be the consequences of more active auditory tasks, including musical performance? Auditory tasks requiring more active driver participation, such as talking on a hands-free cell phone, conversing with passengers, and using voice-command personal assistant operating systems, were all found to be largely distracting to drivers. Talking alone has thus been shown to require a significant amount of effort that might indirectly pull attention away from primary driving task. Interacting and performing along with in-car music comes with additional musical demands including pitch variation, rhythm, and lyric recall; for these reasons, performing along with music whilst driving deserves to be independently investigated.
Uniquely, researchers in the current study chose to measure the quality of musical performance under different driving conditions using Music Performance Analysis (MPA), an examination of how well subjects perform that has been well established in the fields of musicology and music performance science. Throughout two experimental procedures, undergraduate students were tasked with participating in a PC driving game in three conditions: a “No-Drive” condition whereby the participants sat in front of a blank screen, a “Low Demand” condition throughout which participants cruised through a simulated city setting for the length of one song, and a “High Demand” condition where participants were tasked with navigating towards different destinations across a map. In the first experimental task, drivers were instructed to sing along to rigorously selected popular songs; to ensure participants’ knowledge of the songs, YouTube links and accompanying lyrics were provided two days prior to the study. In the second study, drivers were required to drum along to similar songs. In the singing and drumming conditions, professional musicians with years of extensive training judged the correctness of notes and measures respectively. Finally, MPA was implemented according to the judges’ scores across various musical dimensions.
MPA concluded that, in the singing experiment, driving conditions hindered lyrical recall of highly popular and well-known songs compared to stationary conditions. Driving conditions also negatively affected percussive performances involving accompanying rhythms and drumming sequences. Given the scope of the experimental conditions, in which no oncoming traffic was present and “difficult” driving conditions equated to active navigation by the driver, the findings do not bode well on how musical performance might be impacted given genuine traffic congestion, cars with multiple passengers, high speed limits, and winding terrain outside of urban centers. However, MPA only attests to the active attention demanded by musical activity: should we really care if we miss a word or two as long as we make the right turn? Only assumptions can be made about what these findings may mean for drivers’ driving behavior should they refuse to abandon their preferred musical tasks. Further study must be conducted to specifically explore whether inhibited music performance occurred as a result of conscious prioritization of the primary driving task or willing neglect for the secondary musical task, and how driving performance may in fact be impacted by listening and actively engaging with in-car music.
The results of Brodsky’s study call for more research to be done on the impact of in-car music listening and performance to be conducted as it applies directly to current drivers’ skills and safety. While the use of MPA remains novel and interesting, manipulation of what is measured in the same experimental conditions might be useful in determining how singing might affect driving performance. When told to drive as well as possible, participants might willingly abandon their performance efforts, but how would the drivers perform if incentivized to avoid missing a beat or word? Individuals should be concerned as to how intense musical participation behind the wheel might affect driving ability; should it be found that singing along to in-car music does inhibit a driver’s ability to attend to the road adequately, what’s the next step? Is it reasonable to outlaw music in the car in hopes of preventing reckless driving behavior? In doing so, more accidents caused by drivers dozing off at the wheel may accumulate. Furthermore, how would actual singing or drumming behavior be monitored and contrasted with simply listening to music, or even talking-level stimuli such as podcasts or audiobooks? Does music have a unique set of qualities warranting such increased attention? All of these questions mandate further research, but though the current studies detail important conclusions regarding control of attention, music may already be too intertwined with the driving experience to be restricted in any new way.
Citations
Brodsky, W. (2018). A performance analysis of in-car music engagement as an indication of driver distraction and risk. Transportation Research, Part F, 55, 210–218.
Brodsky, W. (2015). Driving with music; cognitive-behavioral implications. London, UK.: Ashgate Publishing Ltd.
Brodsky, W., & Slor, Z. (2013). Background music as a risk factor for distraction among young- novice drivers. Accident Analysis & Prevention, 59, 382–393.
Dibben, N., & Williamson, V. J. (2007). An exploratory survey of in vehicle music listening. Psychology Of Music, 35, 571–590.
Strayer, D. L., & Drews, F. A. (2007). Cell-phone-induced driver distraction. Current Directions In Psychological Science, 16(3), 128–131.
Unal, A. B., de Ward, D., Epstude, K., & Steg, L. (2013). Driving with music: Effects on arousal and performance. Transportation Research, Part F: Traffic Psychology And Behaviour, 21, 52–65.
