Intelligent Cockpit for Intelligent Vehicle in Metaverse: A Case Study of Empathetic Auditory Regulation of Human Emotion

Advances in technologies, such as intelligent connected vehicles and the metaverse are driving the rapid development of automotive intelligent cockpits. From the perspective of the cyber–physical–social system (CPSS), this study proposed the intelligent cockpit composition framework which includes three layers of perception, cognition and decision, and interaction. Meanwhile, we also describe the relationship between the intelligent cockpit framework and the outside environment. The framework can dynamically perceive and understand humans, and provide feedback on the understanding results, which is beneficial to provide a safe, efficient, and enjoyable experience for humans in the intelligent cockpit. In the cognition and decision layers of the proposed framework, we design a case study of active empathetic auditory regulation of driver anger, focusing on improving road traffic safety. We conducted an in-depth interview experiment and designed two auditory regulation materials of active empathy speech and text-to-speech (TTS) speech. Next, 30 participants were recruited, and they completed a total of 240 anger-regulated driving experiments in the straight and obstacle avoidance scenarios. Finally, we quantitatively analyzed and compared the participants’ subjective feelings, physiological changes, driving behaviors, and driving risks, as well as validated the driver anger regulation quality of AES and TTS. The proposed research methods results are beneficial to the design of future intelligent cockpit emotion regulation systems, toward a better intelligent cockpit.