Spearcons have broadened the taxonomy of nonspeech auditory cues. Users can benefit from the application of spearcons in real devices.

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The diagnosis of Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) in children is commonly accompanied by a diagnosis of sensory processing disorders as well. Abnormalities are usually reported in multiple sensory processing domains, showing a higher prevalence of unusual responses, particularly to tactile, auditory and visual stimuli. This paper discusses a novel robot-based framework designed to target sensory difficulties faced by children with ASD in a controlled setting. The setup consists of a number of sensory stations, together with robotic agents that navigate the stations and interact with the stimuli as they are presented. These stimuli are designed to resemble real world scenarios that form a common part of one's everyday experiences. Given the strong interest of children with ASD in technology in general and robots in particular, we attempt to utilize our robotic platform to demonstrate socially acceptable responses to the stimuli in an interactive, pedagogical setting that encourages the child's social, motor and vocal skills, while providing a diverse sensory experience. A preliminary user study was conducted to evaluate the efficacy of the proposed framework, with a total of 18 participants (5 with ASD and 13 typically developing) between the ages of 4 and 12 years. We describe our methods of data collection, coding of video data and the analysis of the results obtained from the study. We also discuss the limitations of the current work and detail our plans for the future work to improve the validity of the obtained results.

This paper aims to systematically explore the relationship between affect, cognition, and driving behaviours. Whereas some driving models partially address drivers' affective factors, the majority of them have focused on cognitive aspects. Thus, it would be helpful to construct an affect-integrated driving behaviour research model. First, I briefly assessed the current driving models and identified critical cognitive elements commonly found among those models. Next, the mechanisms of affective effects on those cognitive processes were described. Then, I showed the effects of affective states on driving performance. Finally, a conceptual model for affect-related driving behaviour research was proposed and followed by discussions from the theoretical and practical perspectives. This review helps researchers construct a more naturalistic and generic driving behaviour model, conceptualise affect detection research with a clearer idea of what affect needs to be detected and why, and develop an affect regulation model and adaptive system for multiple drivers. Relevance to human factors/ergonomics theoryThe present paper reviews affect-related driving research and proposes an affectintegrated driving model based on theoretical and practical evidence. This paper will contribute to conduct more comprehensive driving behaviour research and design an adaptive in-vehicle affect detection and mitigation system.