Mental representations of speech and musical pitch contours reveal a diversity of profiles in autism spectrum disorder

Abstract

As an information-bearing auditory attribute of sound, pitch plays a crucial role in the perception of speech and music. Studies examining pitch processing in autism spectrum disorder have produced equivocal results. To understand this discrepancy from a mechanistic perspective, we used a novel data-driven method, the reverse-correlation paradigm, to explore whether the equivocal findings in autism spectrum disorder have high-level origins in top–down comparisons of internal mental representations of pitch contours. Thirty-two Mandarin-speaking autistic individuals and 32 non-autistic individuals undertook three subtasks testing mental representations of pitch contours in speech, complex tone and melody, respectively. The results indicate that while the two groups exhibited similar representations of pitch contours across the three conditions, the autistic group showed a significantly higher intra-group variability than the non-autistic group. In addition, the two groups did not differ significantly in internal noise, a measure of the robustness of participant responses to external variability, suggesting that the present findings translate genuinely qualitative differences and similarities between groups in pitch processing. These findings uncover for the first time that pitch patterns in speech and music are mentally represented in a similar manner in autistic and non-autistic individuals, through domain-general top–down mechanisms. Lay abstract As a key auditory attribute of sounds, pitch is ubiquitous in our everyday listening experience involving language, music and environmental sounds. Given its critical role in auditory processing related to communication, numerous studies have investigated pitch processing in autism spectrum disorder. However, the findings have been mixed, reporting either enhanced, typical or impaired performance among autistic individuals. By investigating top–down comparisons of internal mental representations of pitch contours in speech and music, this study shows for the first time that, while autistic individuals exhibit diverse profiles of pitch processing compared to non-autistic individuals, their mental representations of pitch contours are typical across domains. These findings suggest that pitch-processing mechanisms are shared across domains in autism spectrum disorder and provide theoretical implications for using music to improve speech for those autistic individuals who have language problems.

Enhanced sensitivity to pitch perception and its possible relation to language acquisition in autism

“…In this respect, atypically enhanced sensitivity to pitch and absolute pitch may be a by-product of atypical perception in autism. A recent study found greater variability in pitch perception in autistic individuals than in neurotypicals, and exceptional pitch sensitivity in a subgroup of autistic individuals ( Wang et al, 2023 ). Also observed and likely to occur is the combination of heightened visual perception and language delay as visual modality is also crucial for language acquisition.…”

Predictive processing of music and language in autism: Evidence from Mandarin and English speakers

“…In the music domain, autism has been associated with typical or extraordinary musical skills, including perception of pitch, melody, and musical emotions (Chen et al, 2022;Janzen & Thaut, 2018;O'Connor, 2012;Ouimet et al, 2012;Quintin, 2019;Wang, Ong, et al, 2023), as well as enculturation to the pitch structure of Western music (DePape et al, 2012). However, reduced performance was also observed in pitch, emotion, and melodic processing (Bhatara et al, 2010;Ong et al, 2023;Sota et al, 2018), beat synchronization (Kasten et al, 2023;Morimoto et al, 2018;Vishne et al, 2021), active rhythmic engagement (Steinberg et al, 2021), and metrical enculturation in autism (DePape et al, 2012).…”

Exploring Reverse Correlation to Hack the Mental Representation of Joy in Speech Signals

“…Second, from a more collective point of view, cultural attributes can be highlighted by agglomerating individual CIs, as well as intercultural differences (for instance, concerning the perception of face emotions [4]). Third, perception discrepancies between healthy individuals and mentally disordered or pathological individuals (e.g., speech and music perception with autistic vs. non-autistic individuals [5]) may be studied. Finally, to enhance computer-to-human or distant human-to-human interactions, it is possible to make one's signal (human or machine) consistent with the CI extracted from the other one, as suggested in [6], where authors set up a reusable audio filter as CI, embedding acoustic properties of honesty or certainty in speech.…”