Distinct Autistic Traits Are Differentially Associated With the Width of the Multisensory Temporal Binding Window

Abstract

Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is a neurodevelopmental disorder characterized by deficits in social communication and interaction, and restricted interests and behavior patterns. These characteristics are considered as a continuous distribution in the general population. People with ASD show atypical temporal processing in multisensory integration. Regarding the flash–beep illusion, which refers to how a single flash can be illusorily perceived as multiple flashes when multiple auditory beeps are concurrently presented, some studies reported that people with ASD have a wider temporal binding window and greater integration than typically developed people; others found the opposite or inconsistent tendencies. Here, we investigated the relationships between the manner of the flash–beep illusion and the various dimensions of ASD traits by estimating the degree of typically developed participants’ ASD traits including five subscales using the Autism-Spectrum Quotient. We found that stronger ASD traits of communication and social skill were associated with a wider and narrower temporal binding window respectively. These results suggest that specific ASD traits are differently involved in the particular temporal binding processes of audiovisual integration.

Autistic Communication and Imagination Sub-Traits Are Related to Audiovisual Temporal Integration in the Stream–Bounce Illusion

“…Kawakami et al (2018) reported that people with higher AQ scores in the social skills subtrait had a narrower temporal binding window in the double-flash illusion. Further, Yaguchi and Hidaka (2018) demonstrated that people who have higher scores in the social skill and communication AQ sub-traits had narrower and wider temporal binding windows, respectively. These investigations of TD individuals suggest that the ASD sub-traits for social communication are particularly related to temporal processing of audiovisual integration.…”

“…We also measured the magnitude of the non-clinical participants' ASD traits using the Japanese version of the AQ (Wakabayashi et al, 2004). This enabled us to investigate the relationships unique to each ASD sub-trait with a relatively large dataset (Kawakami et al, 2018;Yaguchi and Hidaka, 2018). If the relationships between the ASD sub-traits related to social communication and the temporal characteristic of the audiovisual integration observed in the double-flash illusion (Kawakami et al, 2018;Yaguchi and Hidaka, 2018) reflect a general aspect of ASD-specific sensory processing, a similar tendency would also be observed for the stream-bounce effect.…”

Approaches to Understanding Multisensory Dysfunction in Autism Spectrum Disorder

“…Evidence of decreased multisensory gain or benefit has been reported utilizing both simple and complex stimuli [Collignon et al, 2013; Mongillo et al, 2008; Stevenson et al, 2014; Stevenson et al, 2014]. Further, these multisensory deficits have been correlated with symptom severity [Brandwein et al, 2015; Yaguchi & Hidaka, 2018], and the development of multisensory function and its neural underpinnings may be atypical in ASD as well [Beker et al, 2018; Brandwein et al, 2012; Cuppini et al, 2017; Foxe et al, 2015; Stevenson et al, 2013; Taylor, Isaac, & Milne, 2010].…”

“…Importantly, studies have now specifically demonstrated relationships between multisensory temporal processing and severity of social and language impairments in individuals with ASD [Feldman et al, 2018; Patten, Watson, & Baranek, 2014; Stevenson et al, 2018; Wallace, Woynaroski, & Stevenson, 2020; Woynaroski et al, 2013]. Collectively, the body of evidence points to altered multisensory temporal function in ASD, and these temporal alterations are likely to have cascading effects on higher‐order social communicative skills that necessitate the rapid and accurate integration of multisensory information [Stevenson et al, 2016, 2018; Yaguchi & Hidaka, 2018; Zhou et al, 2018].…”

“…Indeed, if multisensory integration is a key building block in the construction of higher‐order cognitive representations, it may serve as a tractable target for intervention that would have benefits that have cascading impact across both the processing hierarchy as well as in development [Baum et al, 2015a; Robertson & Baron‐Cohen, 2017; Stevenson et al, 2018; Stevenson, Siemann, Schneider, et al, 2014; Thye et al, 2018]. With this possibility, it is important to carefully evaluate the potential relationships between multisensory processing and clinical domains such as social communication in ASD [Cascio, Woynaroski, Baranek, & Wallace, 2016; Feldman et al, 2018; Martínez et al, 2019; Patten, Labban, Casenhiser, & Cotton, 2016; Sartorato, Przybylowski, & Sarko, 2017; Wallace et al, 2020; Yaguchi & Hidaka, 2018].…”