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Eco-driving can be an effective strategy to save fuel and reduce CO2 emissions on the road. In the current study, we reason that personal norms are important predictors of eco-driving, and that they are activated when people are aware of environmental problems caused by behavior (problem awareness) and believe that they can contribute to the solution of the problem by changing behavior (outcome efficacy). Extending previous research, we aim at testing two antecedents of this norm activation process: values and environmental knowledge. Results revealed that in comparison with knowledge, values—in particular biospheric values—were strongly associated with the intention to eco-drive by being highly related to awareness of problems caused by car use, which in turn was associated with stronger outcome efficacy beliefs and personal norms for eco-driving. Findings indicate that values are more likely to be a motivational force for pro-environmental intentions than is environmental knowledge.

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High use of motorized vehicles is a major cause of CO 2 emissions, affecting the quality of the environment negatively. Employing policies that aim to reduce car use would be key to decrease transport-related emissions. However, such policies need to be accepted by the public to be successful. In the current paper, we examine whether support for car use reduction policies can be predicted by the Value-Belief-Norm theory (VBN;Stern, 2000), reflecting a process of value triggered norm-activation about reducing one's car use. Notably, we tested the VBN theory in Russia, which is a postsocialist country with a high car use and high transport-related CO 2 emissions. As expected, findings indicate that high endorsement of biospheric values is associated with high environmental concern, which is related to an increased awareness of environmental consequences of car use, and a high ascription of responsibility of one's own contribution to environmental problems related to car use. This process leads to strengthening personal norms to reduce own car use, which were associated with higher acceptability of car use reduction policies. The findings indicate that policies that aim at increased support for car use reduction in Russia could target biospheric values and activate personal norms.

Across 3 studies, we investigated whether visual complexity deriving from internally repeating visual information over many scale levels is a source of perceptual fluency. Such continuous repetition of visual information is formalized in fractal geometry and is a key-property of natural structures. In the first 2 studies, we exposed participants to 3-dimensional high-fractal versus low-fractal stimuli, respectively characterized by a relatively high versus low degree of internal repetition of visual information. Participants evaluated high-fractal stimuli as more complex and fascinating than their low-fractal counterparts. We assessed ease of processing by asking participants to solve effortful puzzles during and after exposure to high-fractal versus low-fractal stimuli. Across both studies, we found that puzzles presented during and after seeing high-fractal stimuli were perceived as the easiest ones to solve and were solved more accurately and faster than puzzles associated with the low-fractal stimuli. In Study 3, we ran the Dot Probe Procedure to rule out that the findings from Study 1 and Study 2 reflected differences in attentional bias between the high-fractal and low-fractal stimuli, rather than perceptual fluency. Overall, our findings confirm that complexity deriving from internal repetition of visual information can be easy on the mind.

The current research examined the influence of loud music on driving performance, and whether mental effort mediated this effect. Participants (N=69) drove in a driving simulator either with or without listening to music. In order to test whether music would have similar effects on driving performance in different situations, we manipulated the simulated traffic environment such that the driving context consisted of both complex and monotonous driving situations. In addition, we systematically kept track of drivers' mental load by making the participants verbally report their mental effort at certain moments while driving. We found that listening to music increased mental effort while driving, irrespective of the driving situation being complex or monotonous, providing support to the general assumption that music can be a distracting auditory stimulus while driving. However, drivers who listened to music performed as well as the drivers who did not listen to music, indicating that music did not impair their driving performance. Importantly, the increases in mental effort while listening to music pointed out that drivers try to regulate their mental effort as a cognitive compensatory strategy to deal with task demands. Interestingly, we observed significant improvements in driving performance in two of the driving situations. It seems like mental effort might mediate the effect of music on driving performance in situations requiring sustained attention. Other process variables, such as arousal and boredom, should also be incorporated to study designs in order to reveal more on the nature of how music affects driving.

The current research examined how drivers handle task-demands induced by listening to the radio while driving. In particular, we explored the traces of a possible cognitive strategy that might be used by drivers to cope with task-demands, namely blocking-out auditory distracters. In Study 1 (N=15), participants listened to a radio-broadcast while watching traffic videos on a screen. Based on a recall task asking about what they had listened to, we created baseline scores reflecting the general levels of blocking-out of radio-content when there was no concurrent driving task accompanying the radio-listening. In Study 2 (N=46), participants were asked to complete two drives in the simulator: one drive in high-complexity traffic and another in low-complexity traffic. About half of the participants listened to a radio-broadcast while driving, and the other half drove in silence. The radio-listeners were given the same recall task that we had used in Study 1. The results revealed that the participants who drove while listening to the radio (Study 2) recalled less material from the radio-broadcast as compared to the participants who did not drive (Study 1). In addition, the participants who drove while listening to the radio recalled less talk-radio excerpts when driving in high-complexity traffic than when driving in low-complexity traffic. Importantly, listening to the radio did not impair driving performance. Together, these findings indicate that blocking-out radio-content might indeed be a strategy used by drivers to maintain their driving performance.

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