Haptic and voice guidance systems both reduced drivers' breathing rates without affecting safety, though 19 of 24 participants preferred haptic stimuli.
Does a guided slow breathing intervention reduce breathing rate in drivers?
In-car guided slow breathing interventions using haptic or voice guidance can effectively reduce drivers' breathing rates without impairing driving safety.
Motivated by the idea that slow breathing practices could transform the automobile commute from a depleting, mindless activity into a calming, mindful experience, we introduce the first guided slow breathing intervention for drivers. We describe a controlled in-lab experiment (N=24) that contrasts the effectiveness and impact of haptic and voice guidance modalities at slowing drivers' breathing pace, which is a known modulator of stress. The experiment was conducted in two simulated driving environments (city, highway) while driving in one of two driving modes (autonomous, manual). Results show that both haptic and voice guidance systems can reduce drivers' breathing rate and provide a sustained post-intervention effect without affecting driving safety. Subjectively, most participants (19/24) preferred the haptic stimuli as they found it more natural to follow, less distracting, and easier to engage and disengage from, compared to the voice stimuli. Finally, while most participants found guided breathing to be a positive experience, a few participants in the autonomous driving condition found slow breathing to be an unusual activity inside the car. In this paper, we discuss such considerations, offer guidelines for designing in-car breathing interventions, and propose future research that extends our work to on-road studies. Altogether, this paper serves as foundational work on guided breathing interventions for automobile drivers.
Paredes et al. (Mon,) conducted a other in Drivers (n=24). Haptic guidance for slow breathing vs. Voice guidance was evaluated on Breathing rate and subjective preference. Haptic and voice guidance systems both reduced drivers' breathing rates without affecting safety, though 19 of 24 participants preferred haptic stimuli.