Studies that explore integration of visual, auditory or vestibular cues, are derived from stimulus detection and discrimination tasks in which stimuli are selective and controlled. Multisensory processing is not as well understood in more dynamic and realistic tasks such as driving. As visual information is the dominant source of information when controlling a vehicle, we were interested in the contribution of auditory and physical motion (vestibular and proprioceptive) information to vehicle control. The simulated environment consisted of a straight, two-lane road and the task was to drive in the center of the right lane and maintain a constant speed, slowing down for occasional speed bumps. We examined differences in driving performance under four sets of sensory cues: visual only, visual and auditory, visual and physical motion, and visual, auditory and physical motion. The quality of visual information was manipulated across two experiments. In Experiment 1, participants drove in daylight in sunny weather, providing excellent visual information. In Experiment 2, visual information was compromised by providing dark and stormy weather conditions. In both experiments we observed an advantage of multisensory information, an effect that was enhanced when visual information was compromised. Auditory cues were especially effective in improving driver control. / Thesis / Master of Science (MSc) / Multisensory processing (combining information from different sensory systems) is not well understood in realistic tasks such as driving. A simulated environment consisted of a straight, two-lane road was used for this study. The task was to drive in the center of the right lane and maintain a constant speed, slowing down for occasional speed bumps. We examined differences in driving performance under four sets of sensory cues: visual only, visual and auditory, visual and physical motion, and visual, auditory and physical motion. The visual information was manipulated across two experiments: first, participants drove in daylight in sunny weather, providing excellent visual information. Next, visual information was compromised by providing dark and stormy weather conditions. In both experiments we observed an advantage of multisensory information, an effect that was enhanced when visual information was compromised. Auditory cues were especially effective in improving driver control.

Yes / Recent research has shown that adults with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) have difficulty interpreting others' emotional responses, in order to work out what actually happened to them. It is unclear what underlies this difficulty; important cues may be missed from fast paced dynamic stimuli, or spontaneous emotional responses may be too complex for those with ASD to successfully recognise. To explore these possibilities, 17 adolescents and adults with ASD and 17 neurotypical controls viewed 21 videos and pictures of peoples' emotional responses to gifts (chocolate, a handmade novelty or Monopoly money), then inferred what gift the person received and the emotion expressed by the person while eye movements were measured. Participants with ASD were significantly more accurate at distinguishing who received a chocolate or homemade gift from static (compared to dynamic) stimuli, but significantly less accurate when inferring who received Monopoly money from static (compared to dynamic) stimuli. Both groups made similar emotion attributions to each gift in both conditions (positive for chocolate, feigned positive for homemade and confused for Monopoly money). Participants with ASD only made marginally significantly fewer fixations to the eyes of the face, and face of the person than typical controls in both conditions. Results suggest adolescents and adults with ASD can distinguish subtle emotion cues for certain emotions (genuine from feigned positive) when given sufficient processing time, however, dynamic cues are informative for recognising emotion blends (e.g. smiling in confusion). This indicates difficulties processing complex emotion responses in ASD.