Voice identity processing in autism spectrum disorder

Abstract

People with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) have difficulties in identifying another person by face and voice. This might contribute considerably to the development of social cognition and interaction difficulties. The characteristics of the voice recognition deficit in ASD are unknown. Here, we used a comprehensive behavioral test battery to systematically investigate voice processing in high-functioning ASD (n = 16) and typically developed pair-wise matched controls (n = 16). The ASD group had particular difficulties with discriminating, learning, and recognizing unfamiliar voices, while recognizing famous voices was relatively intact. Tests on acoustic processing abilities showed that the ASD group had a specific deficit in vocal pitch perception that was dissociable from otherwise intact acoustic processing (i.e., musical pitch, musical, and vocal timbre perception). Our results allow a characterization of the voice recognition deficit in ASD: The findings indicate that in high-functioning ASD, the difficulty to recognize voices is particularly pronounced for learning novel voices and the recognition of unfamiliar peoples' voices. This pattern might be indicative of difficulties with integrating the acoustic characteristics of the voice into a coherent percept-a function that has been previously associated with voice-selective regions in the posterior superior temporal sulcus/gyrus of the human brain. Autism Res 2017, 10: 155-168. © 2016 International Society for Autism Research, Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Atypical sound discrimination in children with ASD as indicated by cortical ERPs

“…These theories are not mutually exclusive, and whether one or the other yields the current results remains to be tested. Nonetheless, recent evidence points toward impaired global processing of vocal sounds, as people with ASD fail to combine the acoustic features into a coherent percept [52, 64]. …”

Deficits in Voice-Identity Processing: Acquired and Developmental Phonagnosia

“…Findings from patients suffering brain damage (Van Lancker and Kreiman, 1987;Van Lancker et al, 1988), neurodegenerative diseases (Hailstone et al, 2010;Hailstone et al, 2011), individuals with ASD (Schelinski et al, 2016b), and cases of developmental phonagnosia (Roswandowitz et al, 2014;Roswandowitz et al, 2017b) suggest a double dissociation between apperceptive and associative voice-identity processing abilities. There are reports on intact perceptual voice-identity analysis ( Figure 1A, Stage I, apperceptive processing) and impaired familiarity decision and semantic association ( Figure 1A, Stage II, III, associative processing) and vice versa.…”

Deficits in Voice-Identity ProcessingAcquired and Developmental Phonagnosia

“…Findings from patients suffering brain damage (Van Lancker and Kreiman, 1987;Van Lancker et al, 1988), neurodegenerative diseases (Hailstone et al, 2010;Hailstone et al, 2011), individuals with ASD (Schelinski et al, 2016b), and cases of developmental phonagnosia (Roswandowitz et al, 2014;Roswandowitz et al, 2017b) In contrast, evidence for a double dissociation between the two stages of associative voice-identity processing -familiarity decision ( Figure 1A, Stage II) and semantic association ( Figure 1A, Stage III) -is missing so far. There is one case report on developmental phonagnosia (case AS) showing impaired familiarity decision but intact association of semantic information to the few successfully recognised speakers' voices (Roswandowitz et al, 2014).…”