In-vehicle music listening: investigating the role of music type on drivers' perception of different types of road signs

Despite previous findings demonstrating that young individuals typically listen to music with lyrics whilst driving, existing in-vehicle music listening research has failed to investigate the potential effect of vocals compared to the instrumental only version of a musical stimulus. Therefore, the primary aim of the present study was to identify if the addition of vocals has an effect on driving as measured by the perception of different types of road signs and also eye movements. Thirty-six undergraduate psychology students participated by completing six simulated driving tasks. The current study employed a 3 x 3 (Musical Segment [vocals and instrumentals, instrumentals only, no music] x Road Sign [verbal, pictorial, combination of verbal and pictorial] within-subjects experimental design. Results revealed that music with lyrics did not appear to have an effect on road sign perception as measured by driving compliance in response to signs and recognition accuracy based on a memory test. Although there was no effect of music on eye movements, when assessing licence type, novice drivers exhibited longer fixations whilst listening to music with lyrics. It was found that perception of road signs varies according to the type of traffic sign. Specifically, while combination road signs were more accurately recognised by individuals, individuals were less compliant in response to this type of road sign compared to verbal and pictorial road signs. The different pattern of results obtained for the measured of road sign perception has implications for future research suggesting more than one method of assessing the processing of road signs is necessary.