Do Musicians with Perfect Pitch Have More Autism Traits than Musicians without Perfect Pitch? An Empirical Study

Dohn, Anders; Garza‐Villarreal, Eduardo A.; Heaton, Pamela; Vuust, Peter

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0037961

Cited by 47 publications

(29 citation statements)

References 42 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Unclassified

Order By: Relevance

“…They also showed the relative BD peak characteristic of autistic people with delayed speech onset. Consistent with these observations, recent findings suggest that musicians with AP possess more autistic-like traits than non-AP musicians (Dohn et al, 2012).…”

Section: Prevalence In Autismsupporting

confidence: 60%

Veridical mapping in the development of exceptional autistic abilities

Mottron¹,

Bouvet²,

Bonnel³

et al. 2013

Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews

Self Cite

202

162

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Superior perception, peaks of ability, and savant skills are often observed in the autistic phenotype. The enhanced perceptual functioning model (Mottron et al., 2006a) emphasizes the increased role and autonomy of perceptual information processing in autistic cognition. Autistic abilities also involve enhanced pattern detection, which may develop through veridical mapping across isomorphic perceptual and non-perceptual structures (Mottron et al., 2009). In this paper, we elaborate veridical mapping as a specific mechanism which can explain the higher incidence of savant abilities, as well as other related phenomena, in autism. We contend that savant abilities such as hyperlexia, but also absolute pitch and synaesthesia, involve similar neurocognitive components, share the same structure and developmental course, and represent related ways by which the perceptual brain deals with objective structures under different conditions. Plausibly, these apparently different phenomena develop through a veridical mapping mechanism whereby perceptual information is coupled with homological data drawn from within or across isomorphic structures. The atypical neural connectivity characteristic of autism is consistent with a developmental predisposition to veridical mapping and the resulting high prevalence of savant abilities, absolute pitch, and synaesthesia in autism.

show abstract

Section: Prevalence In Autismsupporting

confidence: 60%

Veridical mapping in the development of exceptional autistic abilities

Mottron¹,

Bouvet²,

Bonnel³

et al. 2013

Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews

Self Cite

202

162

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…A higher level of autism-related traits has also been reported in non-clinical individuals with absolute pitch [104,105], and autism spectrum scores have demonstrated significant positive correlation with abilities to correctly identify absolute pitch [105]. In schizophrenia and schizotypy, pitch discrimination and memory abilities are, by comparison, strongly reduced compared to control individuals [106-109], in association with deficits in basic processing of non-auditory as well as auditory sensory stimuli [110,111].…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 96%

Developmental heterochrony and the evolution of autistic perception, cognition and behavior

Crespi

2013

BMC Med

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

BackgroundAutism is usually conceptualized as a disorder or disease that involves fundamentally abnormal neurodevelopment. In the present work, the hypothesis that a suite of core autism-related traits may commonly represent simple delays or non-completion of typical childhood developmental trajectories is evaluated.DiscussionA comprehensive review of the literature indicates that, with regard to the four phenotypes of (1) restricted interests and repetitive behavior, (2) short-range and long-range structural and functional brain connectivity, (3) global and local visual perception and processing, and (4) the presence of absolute pitch, the differences between autistic individuals and typically developing individuals closely parallel the differences between younger and older children.SummaryThe results of this study are concordant with a model of ‘developmental heterochrony’, and suggest that evolutionary extension of child development along the human lineage has potentiated and structured genetic risk for autism and the expression of autistic perception, cognition and behavior.

show abstract

“…This region contains several hundred genes, so this potential overlap in genetic architecture requires further study. Gregerson et al (2013) also show that a close genetic relationship exists between synaesthesia and absolute pitch (AP), and AP occurs more often in people with ASC (DePape et al, 2012;Dohn et al, 2012). However, there is a large degree of genetic heterogeneity in the development of synaesthesia, with potential links to many other conditions.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Is Synaesthesia More Prevalent in Autism Spectrum Conditions? Only Where There Is Prodigious Talent

et al. 2017

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Savant syndrome is a condition where prodigious talent co-occurs with developmental difficulties such as autism spectrum conditions (ASC). To better understand savant skills, we previously proposed a link with synaesthesia: that savant syndrome may arise in ASC individuals who also happen to have synaesthesia. A second, unrelated claim is that people with autism may have higher rates of synaesthesia. Here we ask whether synaesthesia is indeed found more often in autism per se,o r only in cases where autism co-occurs with savant skills. People with autism in previous studies when tested for synaesthesia were not differentiated into those with and without savant abilities. Here we tested three groups: people with autism who also have savant skills (n = 40), people with autism without savant skills (n = 34), and controls without autism (n = 29). We used a validated test to diagnose grapheme-colour synaesthesia. Results show a significantly higher prevalence of synaesthesia in people with ASC, but only those who also have savant skills. This suggests that synaesthesia in autism is linked to those with savant abilities rather than autism per se. We discuss the role of synaesthesia in the development of prodigious talent.

show abstract

Do Musicians with Perfect Pitch Have More Autism Traits than Musicians without Perfect Pitch? An Empirical Study

Cited by 47 publications

References 42 publications

Veridical mapping in the development of exceptional autistic abilities

Veridical mapping in the development of exceptional autistic abilities

Developmental heterochrony and the evolution of autistic perception, cognition and behavior

Is Synaesthesia More Prevalent in Autism Spectrum Conditions? Only Where There Is Prodigious Talent

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About