Temporal synchrony and audiovisual integration of speech and object stimuli in autism

Abstract

Background Individuals with Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD) have been shown to have multisensory integration deficits, which may lead to problems perceiving complex, multisensory environments. For example, understanding audiovisual speech requires integration of visual information from the lips and face with auditory information from the voice, and audiovisual speech integration deficits can lead to impaired understanding and comprehension. While there is strong evidence for an audiovisual speech integration impairment in ASD, it is unclear whether this impairment is due to low level perceptual processes that affect all types of audiovisual integration or if it is specific to speech processing. Method Here, we measure audiovisual integration of basic speech (i.e., consonant-vowel utterances) and object stimuli (i.e., a bouncing ball) in adolescents with ASD and well-matched controls. We calculate a temporal window of integration (TWI) using each individual's ability to identify which of two videos (one temporally aligned and one misaligned) matches auditory stimuli. The TWI measures tolerance for temporal asynchrony between the auditory and visual streams, and is an important feature of audiovisual perception. Results While controls showed similar tolerance of asynchrony for the simple speech and object stimuli, individuals with ASD did not. Specifically, individuals with ASD showed less tolerance of asynchrony for speech stimuli compared to object stimuli. In individuals with ASD, decreased tolerance for asynchrony in speech stimuli was associated with higher ratings of autism symptom severity. Conclusions These results suggest that audiovisual perception in ASD may vary for speech and object stimuli beyond what can be accounted for by stimulus complexity.

Audiovisual multisensory integration in individuals with autism spectrum disorder: A systematic review and meta-analysis

“…Likewise, some researchers have found that audiovisual multisensory integration is linked to autism and related symptomatology. There is some evidence, for example, showing that metrics of audiovisual multisensory integration in individuals with ASD are correlated with language (e.g., standardized vocabulary measures; Patten, Watson, & Baranek, 2014), communication skill (e.g., communication domain score from the Autism Diagnostic Observation Schedule; Woynaroski et al, 2013a), and broader autism symptom severity (e.g., total severity score from the Social Responsiveness Scale; Mongillo et al, 2008; Smith, Zhang, & Bennetto, 2017; Turi, Karaminis, Pellicano, & Burr, 2016)…”

Ripe for solution: Delayed development of multisensory processing in autism and its remediation

“…However, the literature is inconclusive as to whether the multisensory TWIN in children and adolescents with ASD differs from typically developing controls. For non-speech stimuli, sometimes group differences are found (De Boer-Schellekens et al, 2013; Foss-Feig et al, 2010; Kwakye et al, 2010; Stevenson, Siemann, Schneider, et al, 2014), whereas other times they are not (Noel et al, 2017; Smith, Zhang, & Bennetto, 2017; Stevenson et al, 2017). Interestingly, two of the four studies that failed to show group differences in TWIN for non-speech stimuli, showed group differences for conditions in which speech stimuli were instead presented (Noel et al, 2017; Stevenson, Siemann, et al, 2014).…”

Atypical Multisensory Integration and the Temporal Binding Window in Autism Spectrum Disorder

“…The results of these two tasks were compared between the ASD and TD groups after controlling for age, sex, and intelligence quotient (IQ) and the relationships between TBW size and SIFI frequency were evaluated. Second, although some studies using other tasks containing social information have reported that altered fundamental processing (i.e., temporal and multisensory processing) affects the severity of ASD (Smith et al 2017 ; Mongillo et al 2008 ), it is unclear whether the multisensory processing performance assessed by non-social tasks (i.e., the SIFI and the flash–beep TOJ) can explain individual differences in symptom severity. Thus, the symptom severity of ASD participants was assessed and its relationships with TBW size and SIFI susceptibility were examined.…”