Altered Auditory and Multisensory Temporal Processing in Autism Spectrum Disorders

Abstract

Autism spectrum disorders (ASD) are characterized by deficits in social reciprocity and communication, as well as by repetitive behaviors and restricted interests. Unusual responses to sensory input and disruptions in the processing of both unisensory and multisensory stimuli also have been reported frequently. However, the specific aspects of sensory processing that are disrupted in ASD have yet to be fully elucidated. Recent published work has shown that children with ASD can integrate low-level audiovisual stimuli, but do so over an extended range of time when compared with typically developing (TD) children. However, the possible contributions of altered unisensory temporal processes to the demonstrated changes in multisensory function are yet unknown. In the current study, unisensory temporal acuity was measured by determining individual thresholds on visual and auditory temporal order judgment (TOJ) tasks, and multisensory temporal function was assessed through a cross-modal version of the TOJ task. Whereas no differences in thresholds for the visual TOJ task were seen between children with ASD and TD, thresholds were higher in ASD on the auditory TOJ task, providing preliminary evidence for impairment in auditory temporal processing. On the multisensory TOJ task, children with ASD showed performance improvements over a wider range of temporal intervals than TD children, reinforcing prior work showing an extended temporal window of multisensory integration in ASD. These findings contribute to a better understanding of basic sensory processing differences, which may be critical for understanding more complex social and cognitive deficits in ASD, and ultimately may contribute to more effective diagnostic and interventional strategies.

Multisensory Integration of Low-level Information in Autism Spectrum Disorder: Measuring Susceptibility to the Flash-Beep Illusion

“…Various researchers have determined that there does exist an extended temporal binding window in ASD, meaning that individuals with ASD continue to integrate sensory information over a larger gap in time than do TD individuals (Foss-Feig et al 2010;Kwakye et al 2011;Woynaroski et al 2013). The current results indicating that the ASD group had significantly lower accuracy than the TD group on the 2F1B (i.e., fusion illusion) and 2F0B trials may be explained by the presence of an expanded temporal binding window.…”

“…Temporal binding windows allow multisensory information to be integrated even when there might be slight temporal asynchronies . In individuals with ASD, it appears that there might be an enlarged or expanded temporal binding window as compared to TD individuals (Baum et al 2015;Foss-Feig et al 2010;Kwakye et al 2011;Stevenson et al 2014a;Wallace and Stevenson 2014). This would mean that individuals with ASD would perceive asynchronous stimuli as simultaneous more so than TD individuals would.…”

The Relationship Between Auditory Processing and Restricted, Repetitive Behaviors in Adults with Autism Spectrum Disorders

“…Previous studies on time perception in ASD using a variety of auditory paradigms such as duration discrimination of complex tones (e.g., Lepistö et al, 2006), temporal processing of complex low-level auditory information (Alcántara, Weisblatt, Moore and Bolton, 2004;Alcántara, Cope, Cope and Weisblatt, 2012;Groen et al, 2009) and temporal order judgment tasks (Kwakye, Foss-Feig, Cascio, Stone and Wallace, 2011) have provided evidence for diminished abilities in auditory temporal processing. It is also found that children with ASD have difficulties reproducing the lengths of auditory stimuli of standardized durations (Szelag, Kowalska, Galkowski and Pöppel, 2004).…”

Fragile Spectral and Temporal Auditory Processing in Adolescents with Autism Spectrum Disorder and Early Language Delay

“…Relevant is also the increased prevalence of absolute pitch and musical savants in the ASD population (e.g., DePape et al 2012;Heaton et al 2008a, b, c;Miller 1989;Mottron et al 2013) and the increased prevalence of autistic traits among possessors of absolute pitch (e.g., Dohn et al 2012). The occurrence of this superior pitch processing contrasts with the inferior temporal processing abilities in ASD (such as impaired gap-in-noise detection, duration discrimination, temporalenvelope processing, temporal order judgement; e.g., Alcántara et al 2012;Bhatara et al 2013;Kwakye et al 2011;Lepisto et al 2005Lepisto et al , 2006Samson et al 2011; but see Jones et al 2009;Kasai et al 2005) and the evidence of speech perception impairments (Alcántara et al 2004;Bhatara et al 2013;Groen et al 2009) and generally delayed speech and language development (e.g., Anderson et al 2007). Speech perception has been shown to be particularly impaired while presented in noise with temporal dips (Alcántara et al 2004;Groen et al 2009) or in a competing talker condition (Alcántara et al 2004;Bhatara et al 2013).…”