The influence of yaw motion on the perception of active vs passive visual curvilinear displacement

Self-motion perception, which partly determines the realism of dynamic driving simulators, is based on multisensory integration. However, it remains unclear how the brain integrates these cues to create adequate motion perception, especially for curvilinear displacements. In the present study, the effect of visual, inertial and visuo-inertial cues (concordant or discordant bimodal cues) on self-motion perception was analyzed. Subjects were asked to evaluate (externally produced) or produce (self-controlled) curvilinear displacements as accurately as possible. The results show systematic overestimation of displacement, with better performance for active subjects than for passive ones. Furthermore, it was demonstrated that participants used unimodal or bimodal cues differently in performing their activity. When passive, subjects systematically integrated visual and inertial cues even when discordant, but with weightings that depended on the dynamics. On the contrary, active subjects were able to reject the inertial cue when the discordance became too high, producing self-motion perception on the basis of more reliable information. Thereby, multisensory integration seems to follow a non-linear integration model of, i.e., the cues' weight changes with the cue reliability and/or the intensity of the stimuli, as reported by previous studies. These results represent a basis for the adaptation of motion cueing algorithms are developed for dynamic driving simulators, by taking into account the dynamics of simulated motion in line with the status of the participants (driver or passenger).