Sensitivity to auditory-tactile colocation in early infancy.

An ability to detect the common location of multisensory stimulation is essential for us to perceive a coherent environment, to represent the interface between the body and the external world, and to act on sensory information. Regarding the tactile environment "at hand", we need to represent somatosensory stimuli impinging on the skin surface in the same spatial reference frame as distal stimuli, such as those transduced by vision and audition. Across two experiments we investigated whether 6- (n = 14; Experiment 1) and 4-month-old (n = 14; Experiment 2) infants were sensitive to the colocation of tactile and auditory signals delivered to the hands.

Warning Drivers about Impending Collisions Using Vibrotactile Flow.

Vibrotactile collision warning signals that create a sensation of motion across a driver's body result in faster brake reaction times (BRTs) to potential collision events. To date, however, such warnings have only simulated linear motion. We extended this research by exploring the effectiveness of collision warnings that incorporate vibrotactile patterns or "vibrotactile flow".

Dynamic vibrotactile signals for forward collision avoidance warning systems.

Objective: Four experiments were conducted in order to assess the effectiveness of dynamic vibrotactile collision-warning signals in potentially enhancing safe driving.

Background: Auditory neuroscience research has demonstrated that auditory signals that move toward a person are more salient than those that move away. If this looming effect were found to extend to the tactile modality, then it could be utilized in the context of in-car warning signal design.

Dynamic vibrotactile warning signals for frontal collision avoidance: towards the torso versus towards the head.

Unlabelled: Three experiments were conducted to assess the effectiveness of dynamic vibrotactile warning signals with different spatial patterns and to compare dynamic towards-torso and towards-head vibrotactile warnings in a simulated driving task. The results revealed that embedding additional stimuli between the participant's hands and waist in the towards-torso cues (Experiment 1) and increasing the spatial distance between adjacent stimuli in the towards-head cues (Experiment 2) did not result in any further benefits in braking response times (BRTs). The triple towards-head cues resulting from the sequential operation of three pairs of stimuli on the torso gave rise to a significant advantage over the static cues; however, it did not outperform the dynamic towards-torso cues with just two pairs of stimuli.

Effectively responding to tactile stimulation: do homologous cue and effector locations really matter?

We report a study designed to investigate the extent to which speeded behavioral responses following tactile stimulation are influenced by differences in neural conduction latencies at different body sites and/or by the characteristics of the compatibility between the cue and effector. The results showed that it may not be particularly desirable to present tactile cues (e.g.

Reorienting driver attention with dynamic tactile cues.

A series of three experiments was designed to investigate whether the presentation of moving tactile warning signals that are presented in a particular spatiotemporal configuration may be particularly effective in terms of facilitating a driver's response to a target event. In the experiments reported here, participants' visual attention was manipulated such that they were either attending to the frontal object that might occasionally approach them on a collision course, or else they were distracted by a color discrimination task presented from behind. We measured how rapidly participants were able to initiate a braking response to a looming visual target following the onset of vibrotactile warning signals presented from around their waist.

A comparison of different informative vibrotactile forward collision warnings: does the warning need to be linked to the collision event?

Recent research demonstrates that auditory and vibrotactile forward collision warnings presenting a motion signal (e.g., looming or apparent motion across the body surface) can facilitate speeded braking reaction times (BRTs).

Assessing the benefits of multisensory audiotactile stimulation for overweight individuals.

We report an experiment designed to examine whether individuals who are overweight would perform differently when trying to detect and/or discriminate auditory, vibrotactile, and audiotactile targets. The vibrotactile stimuli were delivered either to the participant's abdomen or to his hand. Thirty-six young male participants were classified into normal, underweight, or overweight groups based on their body mass index.

Role of audiovisual synchrony in driving head orienting responses.

Many studies now suggest that optimal multisensory integration sometimes occurs under conditions where auditory and visual stimuli are presented asynchronously (i.e. at asynchronies of 100 ms or more).

Crowding by invisible flankers.

Background: Human object recognition degrades sharply as the target object moves from central vision into peripheral vision. In particular, one's ability to recognize a peripheral target is severely impaired by the presence of flanking objects, a phenomenon known as visual crowding. Recent studies on how visual awareness of flanker existence influences crowding had shown mixed results.

Using peripersonal warning signals to orient a driver's gaze.

Objective: We report a series of three experiments designed to assess the relative speed with which people can initiate speeded head-orienting responses following the presentation of spatial warning signals.

Background: Recent cognitive neuroscience findings have shown that the human brain tends to treat stimuli occurring in peripersonal space as being somehow more behaviorally relevant and attention demanding than stimuli occurring in extrapersonal space. These brain mechanisms may be exploited in the design of warning signals.

Multisensory warning signals: when spatial correspondence matters.

We report a study designed to investigate the effectiveness of task-irrelevant unimodal and bimodal audiotactile stimuli in capturing a person's spatial attention away from a highly perceptually demanding central rapid serial visual presentation (RSVP) task. In "Experiment 1", participants made speeded elevation discrimination responses to peripheral visual targets following the presentation of auditory stimuli that were either presented alone or else were paired with centrally presented tactile stimuli. The results showed that the unimodal auditory stimuli only captured spatial attention when participants were not performing the RSVP task, while the bimodal audiotactile stimuli did not result in any performance change in any of the conditions.

Capturing spatial attention with multisensory cues.

We assessed the influence ofmultisensory interactions on the exogenous orienting of spatial attention by comparing the ability of auditory, tactile, and audiotactile exogenous cues to capture visuospatial attention under conditions of no perceptual load versus high perceptual load. In Experiment 1, participants discriminated the elevation of visual targets preceded by either unimodal or bimodal cues under conditions of either a high perceptual load (involving the monitoring of a rapidly presented central stream of visual letters for occasionally presented target digits) or no perceptual load (when the central stream was replaced by a fixation point). All of the cues captured spatial attention in the no-load condition, whereas only the bimodal cues captured visuospatial attention in the high-load condition.

Multisensory in-car warning signals for collision avoidance.

Objective: A driving simulator study was conducted in order to assess the relative utility of unimodal auditory, unimodal vibrotactile, and combined audiotactile (i.e., multisensory) in-car warning signals to alert and inform drivers of likely front-to-rear-end collision events in a situation modeled on real-world driving.

Head orientation biases tactile localization.

Does the perceived location of tactile stimuli presented on the torso depend on the orientation of our heads with respect to our bodies? An experiment is reported that was designed to assess whether the subjective perception of tactile stimuli on the torso changes as people turn their heads in different directions. Our participants used a scale presented on a computer monitor to indicate the perceived position of vibrotactile stimuli presented to one of eight different positions around the frontal side of their waist while they either looked straight ahead, turned their head to the left, or else turned their head to the right. The results showed that the perceived location of tactile stimuli was systematically influenced by head orientation.

An investigation into the temporal dimension of the Mozart effect: evidence from the attentional blink task.

In the present study, we examined whether the 'Mozart effect' would influence participants' temporal attention using a visual attentional blink (AB) task that provides a reliable measure of the temporal dynamics of visual attention. The 'Mozart effect' refers to the specific claim that listening to Mozart's Sonata for Two Pianos in D Major, K.448 can improve the performance in spatio-temporal tasks.

The differential effect of vibrotactile and auditory cues on visual spatial attention.

Previous research has shown that the presentation of spatially predictive auditory and vibrotactile warning signals can facilitate driver responses to driving events seen through the windscreen or rearview mirror. The present study investigated whether this facilitation reflects the priming of the appropriate response (i.e.

Assessing the effectiveness of "intuitive" vibrotactile warning signals in preventing front-to-rear-end collisions in a driving simulator.

This study was designed to investigate the possibility that driver responses to potential front-to-rear-end collision situations could be facilitated by implementing vibrotactile warning signals that indicate the likely direction of the potential collision. In a car following scenario in a driving simulator, participants drove along a rural road while trying to maintain a safe headway distance to the lead car using a visual distance display. Participants had to respond as quickly as possible to the sudden deceleration of the lead car which had its brake lights disabled, either with or without vibrotactile cues (presented in different experimental blocks).

Assessing the effectiveness of various auditory cues in capturing a driver's visual attention.

This study was designed to assess the potential benefits of using spatial auditory warning signals in a simulated driving task. In particular, the authors assessed the possible facilitation of responses (braking or accelerating) to potential emergency driving situations (the rapid approach of a car from the front or from behind) seen through the windshield or the rearview mirror. Across 5 experiments, the authors assessed the efficacy of nonspatial-nonpredictive (neutral), spatially nonpredictive (50% valid), and spatially predictive (80% valid) car horn sounds, as well as symbolic predictive and spatially presented symbolic predictive verbal cues (the words "front" or "back") in directing the participant's visual attention to the relevant direction.

Olfactory facilitation of dual-task performance.

We investigated the differential effects of olfactory stimulation on dual-task performance under conditions of varying task difficulty. Participants detected visually presented target digits from amongst a stream of visually presented distractor letters in a rapid serial visual presentation (RSVP) task. At the same time, participants also made speeded discrimination responses to vibrotactile stimuli presented on the front or back of their torso.