Sharing the Roads: Robot Drivers (Vs. Human Drivers) Might Provoke Greater Driving Anger When They Perform Identical Annoying Driving Behaviors

ABSTRACT

Automated vehicles (AVs) are ready to share public roads with humans in mixed traffic. How human drivers will interact with AVs is unclear. We assumed that AVs’ aberrant behaviors (e.g., driving slowly) provoke higher driving anger than identical ones by human drivers do and examined this assumption from the perspective of mind perception (i.e., perception of whether AVs have human-like minds or lack thereof). Mind perception has two dimensions: agency (capable of doing and planning) and experience (capable of feeling and sensing). Our survey (N = 622) supported this assumption. Agency attribution to AVs is negatively correlated with driving anger, suggesting that perceiving AVs as lacking agency might be associated with greater anger toward AVs’ aberrant behaviors. Attributing high agency to AVs eliminated the human-AV difference. The relationship between driving anger and experience attribution was U-shaped: Participants attributing “middle” experience to AVs reported lower anger than those attributing no or “high” experience to AVs. We speculate that perceiving AV as having high capability to feel and sense might induce the “uncanny valley” effect documented in the literature on human-robot interaction, enhancing more negative reactions. Our findings suggest AVs’ aberrant behaviors and their induced anger as emerging risks to future mixed-traffic flow.

Additional information

Funding

This study was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Project no. 72071143) and the Incheon National University (International Cooperative) Research Grant in 2020.

Notes on contributors

Tingting Li

Tingting Li is a graduate student of the College of Management and Economics, Tianjin University, China. She graduated from Nanjing Agricultural University in China. Her research is focused on human factors in autonomous driving.

Lin Wang

Lin Wang is an associate professor at the Department of Library and Information Science of Incheon National University in South Korea. She received her PhD from Tsinghua University in China. Her research interests include human-computer interaction, user experience design, cross-cultural design, and design for older adults.

Jinting Liu

Jinting Liu is a graduate student of the College of Management and Economics, Tianjin University, China. He graduated from Beijing University of Chemical Technology in China. His research is focused on human reliability analysis and human factors in autonomous driving.

Jiangshu Yuan

Jiangshu Yuan is an undergraduate student of the College of Management and Economics, Tianjin University, China. His research is focused on human factors in autonomous driving.

Peng Liu

Peng Liu is a professor (research) in the Center for Psychological Sciences, Zhejiang University, China. His research is focused on human factors and ergonomics, risk analysis, and risk perception related to complex systems such as autonomous driving and nuclear power plants.