Audiovisual Temporal Processing in Children and Adolescents With Schizophrenia and Children and Adolescents With Autism: Evidence From Simultaneity-Judgment Tasks and Eye-Tracking Data

Abstract

Impaired audiovisual temporal integration, manifested as an abnormally widened temporal-binding window (TBW) for integrating sensory information, is found in both autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and schizophrenia (SCZ) and contributes to aberrant perceptual experiences and impaired social communication. We conducted two experiments using age-comparable samples of participants with early-onset SCZ and participants with ASD. Sophisticated paradigms, including a unisensory temporal-order-judgment task (TOJ), an audiovisual-simultaneity-judgment task (SJ), and an eye-tracking task were used. Results showed generalized deficits in temporal processing in SCZ ranging from unisensory to multisensory modalities and from nonspeech to speech stimuli. In contrast, the widened TBW in ASD mainly affected speech stimuli processing. Applying the eye-tracking task with ecologically valid linguistic stimuli, we found that both participants with SCZ and participants with ASD exhibited reduced sensitivity of detecting audiovisual speech asynchrony. This impaired audiovisual speech integration correlated with negative symptoms. Although both ASD and SCZ have impaired multisensory temporal integration, ASD impairs speech-related processing, and SCZ is associated with generalized deficits.

RETRACTED: Auditory perceptual learning in autistic adults

“…Neural plasticity involving adaptation and experience‐dependent auto‐calibration has been observed to result in atypicalities in flexible perceptual processing, specifically in situations involving ambiguity that may in turn affect learning (Pellicano & Burr, 2012; Sinha et al, 2014). In particular, attenuated perceptual flexibility appears to occur in contexts requiring processing of complex or higher‐level socially‐relevant stimuli, such as an audiovisual recalibration, speech integration, facial and lip‐reading (e.g., Karaminis et al, 2015; Magnée et al, 2008; Noel et al, 2017; Turi et al, 2016; Zhou et al, 2021).…”

Editorial: The heterogeneity of neuropsychiatric disorders

“…UD but similar to that of individuals with BD. Likewise, the aberrant perceptual experience and impaired social communication in ASD and SCZ are probably due to their shared impairment in audiovisual temporal integration (5).…”

“…They found that the cognitive dysfunction pattern in patients with UDB is different from that of individuals with UD but similar to that of individuals with BD. Likewise, the aberrant perceptual experience and impaired social communication in ASD and SCZ are probably due to their shared impairment in audiovisual temporal integration ( 5 ).…”

Audiovisual temporal processing in adult patients with first-episode schizophrenia and high-functioning autism

“…One study administered the speechrelated simultaneous judgement (SJ) task to adolescents with ASD and adults with schizophrenia, which measured multisensory temporal integration 23 . Another recent study investigated both the unisensory and multisensory temporal processing in children with ASD and adolescents with early onset schizophrenia, and the results revealed generalized difficulties in temporal processing in schizophrenia, but ASD was associated with temporal processing differences affecting only speech stimuli 24 . In both studies 23,24 , samples of the two disorders were recruited separately, and comparison between the two disorders in the TBW was only conducted in a post-hoc manner, and the results were confounded by the unmatched demographics of the two clinical groups.…”

“…Another recent study investigated both the unisensory and multisensory temporal processing in children with ASD and adolescents with early onset schizophrenia, and the results revealed generalized difficulties in temporal processing in schizophrenia, but ASD was associated with temporal processing differences affecting only speech stimuli 24 . In both studies 23,24 , samples of the two disorders were recruited separately, and comparison between the two disorders in the TBW was only conducted in a post-hoc manner, and the results were confounded by the unmatched demographics of the two clinical groups. Moreover, considering the drastic developmental changes of TBW during childhood and adolescence 8 , whether the differences of temporal sensory processing in patients with ASD and patients with schizophrenia would change as they reach adulthood is of great research interest.…”