Driving? Don’t Play that Music Just Yet
Seatbelt? Check. Gas? Check. Playlist? Check. As an avid car-aoke singer, music for my journey, regardless of if it is a five-minute grocery run or a five-hour road trip, is essential. From easing stress to alleviating the boredom that comes with being stuck in seemingly never-ending traffic, music plays an incredibly beneficial role in the majority of drivers. Therefore, it comes as no surprise that almost 90% of individuals listen to music while driving. To these people (myself included), music is up there along with braking and steering as being of the utmost importance while driving.
But is singing all that occurs? NOPE. Most individuals have a one-person show going on in the car, often not only singing along but also drumming with the beats or even banging on the steering wheel. While we may not all have been blessed with voices like Beyonce or Adele, studies have shown that music engagement can lead to increased concentration. However, with the benefits comes trade-offs, one of the biggest ones being: Music can act as a distraction.
Have you ever been so occupied in a song that you’ve accidentally gone ten or even 15 miles above the speed limit? Or perhaps you begin to slow down because you are so enthralled in trying to find that perfect song to fit your mood. According to researchers at the South China University of Technology, drivers who listen to upbeat tunes (ie, over 130 beats per min) went 5–10 miles per hour faster than those listening to songs less than 80 beats per minute. Dangerous driving behaviors like that not only can wreak havoc on your safety (and even bank account if you get a ticket) but also the safety of everyone around you. And to think this was all due to one seemingly harmless culprit: music.
So which one is it? Does music help or harm driving performance? On the flip side, could different driving conditions also effect music tasks? Researchers within the Music Science Lab at the Ben Gurion University of the Negev developed a two-part study to answer these questions. Their research explored whether background music facilitated performance while driving either by negatively acting as a distraction or positively increasing concentration.
Much of past research has focused on driving while just listening to background music. However, researchers here aimed to steer away (no pun intended) from this and see what would happen if drivers were engaging in a more active mode of music engagement. These dynamic forms include singing or drumming along to well-known popular songs.
For the first part of the study, researchers recorded score-based errors and investigated whether there would be an increase in mistakes depending on driving condition difficulty. These errors included things like deletion (failing to sing a correct note), additions (adding something that was not a part of the song), and timing errors. A sample of 19 undergraduate students was first placed in the no driving (ND) condition and asked to sing along to 2 popular, well-known songs being played from provided headphones. Of note, participants were given time before the study to memorize lyrics. They were then asked to sing again, but this time driving was simulated via a PC controlled video game. Subjects were placed in either a low demand (LD) driving group or a high demand (HD) driving group. The LD drivers could freely cruise anywhere in the game, while the HD drivers had to navigate, read a map and get to a specific location.
So what did they find? Nothing…conclusive. Score-based errors were the same when engaging in Caraoke regardless of if the subjects were “driving” or not. So mystery solved, driving is not distracting, right? Not quite. There was still a higher percentage of error in remembering lyrics in the LD and HD drivers in comparison to the ND group.
It makes sense, doesn’t it? Many people would be less inclined to sing and engage in music while driving through the crowded streets of D.C. versus an empty neighborhood street. One thing to mention is that the mean age of participants for this half of the study was 25.5, which is pretty young if you ask me. Furthermore, past research has found people within this age group have a significantly lower number of police-reported crashes than compared to a novice 16-year-old drivers or an experienced 80-year-old driver; one has to wonder how these results would differ with age?
If the average 16-year-old is already more likely to be involved in a car crash by adding an extra component of music, one would think it would lead to even more distractions on the roadways? This subsequently would not only most likely result in an increase of vehicular errors but also increased musical errors not seen with this particular sample group?
But what if you aren’t much of a caraoke star, well drumming and even banging on anything and everything around you still counts as music engagement. Hence, researchers conducted part 2 of the study by examining how driving conditions could impact percussive performances. Researchers used the same procedures from study one with the addition of sensors in the car, and participants were instructed to drum along to the songs rather than sing. They found that subjects engaged in less drumming when in the LD and HD driving group in comparison to the ND group. Similarly to the increased errors in lyrical memory, there was also an increase in errors in drumming performances as driving demands increased.
The brain has a limited capacity for information processing. When engaging in music while driving (2 very attention-seeking tasks), there can be competition between the two. Studies 1 and 2 revealed a reduction in memory recall in lyrics as well as increased errors in drumming under driving conditions, respectively. However, driving conditions were tested via a PC-controlled video game one can only imagine how the results would be affected when getting behind a real vehicle and driving. Yikes. With the endless amount of roadway hazards, it seems like all driving is high demand. It would be interesting to create more groups by further categorizing different driving demands. For example, including a wide variety of “high demand” hazards (ie, bad weather, reckless drivers, or even bicyclists) could further diversify the results to yield more conclusive results.
In a time of aux cords and Bluetooth, listening to music in cars is inevitable. However, one thing is true: being always alert while driving is a must. Every time you step into a vehicle, you are taking a risk, and music may or may not be doing you any favors during this time. Yes, there may be a 0% chance that you will stop engaging in music while driving. But remember in video games if you crash game over and restart. But in reality, if you hit, there are no do-overs.
References:
Brodsky, W. (2018). A performance analysis of In-Car Music engagement as an indication of driver distraction and risk. Transportation Research Part F: Traffic Psychology and Behaviour, 55, 210–218. doi: 10.1016/j.trf.2018.02.034
Allen, J. (2019, September 23). Fast-paced music makes drivers more likely to break the speed limit. Retrieved from https://www.driving.co.uk/news/fast-paced-music-makes-drivers-likely-break-speed-limit/.
Teenage and Older Drivers — Consumer Reports Magazine. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://www.consumerreports.org/cro/magazine/2012/10/teenagers-and-older-people-are-the-riskiest-drivers/index.htm.
