Autistic Traits and Sensitivity to Interference With Flavour Identification

Abstract

We assessed whether autistic traits are related to the ability to identify flavour. In general, the colour of the food or drink facilitates identification of its flavour. In the current study, the colour of drinks either provided congruent, incongruent or ambiguous (colourless) information about the flavour. Participants identified the flavours of 12 drinks from a list and completed a measure of autistic traits, the Autism-Spectrum Quotient (AQ). In line with previous studies, flavour identification was impaired in incongruent conditions, while identification in congruent conditions was not improved when compared with that in ambiguous conditions. AQ scores were related to flavour identification in incongruent conditions, in that as the AQ score increased, accuracy of flavour identification decreased. There were no relationships found in the congruent or ambiguous conditions. This finding is in line with the idea that conflicting sensory information may be more disruptive for individuals on the autism spectrum.

Lexical Effects on Children's Speech Processing: Individual Differences Reflected in the Autism-Spectrum Quotient (AQ)

“…The results were related primarily to the Attention Switching component of the AQ but not to the SRS, indicating that the source of this variance is likely to be a general dimension of cognitive processing style, possibly related to integration and/or switching between local and global information, rather than cognitive mechanisms underlying ASC. Such an interpretation aligns with previous findings of AQ-related variation in adults in speech processing tasks (e.g., Stewart & Ota, 2008;Yu, 2010;Yu et al, 2013), as well as in other types of tasks that involve dual-level information processing (e.g., Clark et al, 2013;. While these findings are intriguing, we still do not fully understand why an instrument originally designed to test traits associated with ASC also captures individual differences in a range of cognitive tasks across domains.…”

“…Indeed, performance in the speech processing tasks is usually best predicted by the AQ subscale that has a strong construct-based tie to local/global information integration: Attention Switching, a measure of how strongly individuals focus their attention to a single information source at the expense of others (Stewart & Ota, 2008;Yu, 2010;Yu et al, 2013). Furthermore, AQ scores correlate with other cognitive and perceptual differences that can be construed as variation in local/global information processing, for example, recognition of embedded visual patterns (Almeida, Dickinson, Maybery, Badcock, & Badcock, 2009;Stewart, Watson, Allcock, & Yaqoob, 2009) and taste-color integration (Clark, Hughes, Grube, & Stewart, 2013).…”

Autistic Traits and Enhanced Perceptual Representation of Pitch and Time

“…The scale is not a diagnostic measure, although it was developed using diagnostic criteria, rather it is a measure of the levels of autistic traits (Baron- Cohen et al 2001). In line with a continuum theory of the autism spectrum between persons with ASC and the typically developed population, similarities in processing styles are found in those who score highly on the AQ compared with those with ASC (Almeida et al 2010; Baron-Cohen et al 2001;Bayliss and Tipper 2005;Clark et al 2013;Fugard et al 2011;Grinter et al 2009a;2009b;Stewart and Ota 2008;Stewart et al 2009). In this study we test whether autistic character traits are correlated with fundamental aspects of auditory processing.…”

Categorical Speech Perception in Adults with Autism Spectrum Conditions

“…The Autism-Spectrum Quotient (AQ; Baron-Cohen et al 2001) 'strongly agree', 'agree', 'disagree', and 'strongly disagree'. We used Likert scoring (e.g., Austin 2005;Clark et al 2013;Hoekstra et al 2007;Stewart and Ota 2008) and included all four levels when computing scores. Item scores ranged from 1-4, so total AQ scores ranged from 50-200, and the subscores ranged from 10-40, with a higher score indicating more autistic traits.…”