Integration of auditory and self-motion cues in spatial navigation

Previous studies have demonstrated that auditory cues are integrated with other sensory cues for navigation. However, the extent to which auditory cues are used remains an open question, particularly in the context of reduced availability of visual landmarks. Sensory cue-combination paradigms have used homing tasks to quantify how much a single cue contributes to spatial updating. These paradigms have tested whether multisensory cue integration fits a model of optimal integration, or the reduction of multisensory variability in the form of a maximum likelihood function based on the variability of a single sensory cue. Here, we test the extent to which individuals rely on spatial auditory landmarks relative to body-based self-motion cues in the absence of useful visual landmarks. Twenty-seven participants with normal sensory acuity completed a homing task in virtual reality with auditory landmarks, self-motion cues, or both. Furthermore, a condition with a covert spatial conflict was introduced to test how much participants rely on either auditory landmarks or self-motion information. As a group, participants relied more on body-based self-motion cues than on auditory landmarks; however, there was a wide range of sensory cue weighting strategies. We found some support for optimal combination of these two sets of sensory cues, a novel pairing in the absence of visual spatial landmarks. Overall, these data indicate that the provision of auditory landmarks may complement spatial updating during navigation. This finding may be of particular value to individuals with visual impairments who struggle with effective spatial updating. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved).