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Dashboard-mounted touchscreen tablets are now common in vehicles. Screen/phone use in cars likely shifts drivers' attention away from the road and contributes to risk of accidents. Nevertheless, vision is subject to multisensory influences from other senses. Haptics may help maintain or even increase visual attention to the road, while still allowing for reliable dashboard control. Here, we provide a proof-of-concept for the effectiveness of digital haptic technologies (hereafter digital haptics), which use ultrasonic vibrations on a tablet screen to render haptic perceptions. Healthy human participants (N = 25) completed a divided-attention paradigm. The primary task was a centrally-presented visual conjunction search task, and the secondary task entailed control of laterally-presented sliders on the tablet. Sliders were presented visually, haptically, or visuo-haptically and were vertical, horizontal or circular. We reasoned that the primary task would be performed best when the secondary task was haptic-only. Reaction times (RTs) on the visual search task were fastest when the tablet task was haptic-only. This was not due to a speed-accuracy trade-off; there was no evidence for modulation of VST accuracy according to modality of the tablet task. These results provide the first quantitative support for introducing digital haptics into vehicle and similar contexts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite the rapid growth of research on the crossmodal correspondence between visually presented shapes and basic tastes (e.g., sweet, sour, bitter, and salty), most studies that have been published to date have focused on shape contour (roundness/angularity). Meanwhile, other important features, such as symmetry, as well as the underlying mechanisms of the shape-taste correspondence, have rarely been studied. Over two experiments, we systematically manipulated the symmetry and contours of shapes and measured the influences of these variables on shape-taste correspondences. Furthermore, we investigated a potential underlying mechanism, based on the common affective appraisal of stimuli in different sensory modalities. We replicated the results of previous studies showing that round shapes are associated with sweet taste, whereas angular shapes are associated with sour and bitter tastes. In addition, we demonstrated a novel effect that the symmetry group of a shape influences how it is associated with taste. A significant relationship was observed between the taste and appraisal scores of the shapes, suggesting that the affective factors of pleasantness and threat underlie the shape-taste correspondence. These results were consistent across cultures, when we compared participants from Taiwanese and Western (UK, US, Canada) cultures. Our findings highlight that perceived pleasantness and threat are culturally common factors involved in at least some crossmodal correspondences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]