The Subjective Experience of Music in Autism Spectrum Disorder

Abstract

Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 12 high-functioning adults on the autism spectrum in order to examine the nature of their personal experiences of music. The analysis showed that most participants exploit music for a wide range of purposes in the cognitive, emotional and social domains, but the autism spectrum disorder (ASD) group's descriptions of mood states reflected a greater reliance on internally focused (arousal) rather than externally focused (emotive) language, when compared with studies of typically developing individuals.

Intact brain processing of musical emotions in autism spectrum disorder, but more cognitive load and arousal in happy vs. sad music

“…Thus the stronger insula activation found in the ASD group in this study might be linked to enhanced bodily arousal in response to happy music compared to NT individuals. This corresponds well with self-reports of individuals with ASD describing stronger physiological responses to music (Allen et al, 2009a). …”

“…Hence, the increased activation of the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex found in this study, is likely related to a more cognitively demanding emotion recognition strategy for happy music in the ASD group. This would be consistent with the findings of more analytical and cognitive strategies which have been suggested to govern face perception in individuals with ASD (Jemel et al, 2006), and with findings of atypicalities in verbal reporting of emotions (Heaton et al, 2012; Bird and Cook, 2013), including musical emotions in people with ASD (Allen et al, 2009a, 2013). …”

“…Behavioral studies have shown that people with ASD process musical contour and intervals just as well as NT individuals (Heaton, 2005), and that they display superior pitch processing (Bonnel et al, 1999; Heaton et al, 1999; Heaton, 2003) and pitch memory (Heaton, 2003; Stanutz et al, 2014). Interestingly, behavioral studies have shown that children and adults with ASD correctly identify a wide range of emotions in music just as well as NT individuals (Heaton et al, 2008; Allen et al, 2009a,b; Caria et al, 2011; Quintin et al, 2011). A qualitative study by Allen et al (2009b) found that adults with ASD listened to music as often as people without ASD, and when asked why they listened to music, they reported being emotionally affected by the music and feeling a sense of belonging to a particular musical culture.…”

Influence of music on steroid hormones and the relationship between receptor polymorphisms and musical ability: a pilot study

“…AVPR is associated with sociality, where the short sequence type is linked to antisocial and autistic behavior. An inverse relationship between musical talent and sociality has also been reported (Allen et al, 2009). Previous results are very interesting but no firm conclusions can be drawn, which means that further studies are essential.…”

A metaphysical and neuropsychological assessment of musical tones to affect the brain, relax the mind and heal the body

“…It achieves this through adjusting the necessary inharmonious atomic frequencies that comprise the human body, back to the right frequencies, as presented by Goldman (2002:90). On this, a substantial body of clinical data, according to Clark, Downey and Warren (2014:444-452), has now been amassed, showing the positive effects of music on the structural and emotional processors in developmental and acquired brain disorders, including autism (see Allen, Hill & Heaton 2009;Allen, Walsh & Zangwill 2013;Caria, Venuti & De Falco 2011), strokes and other focal lesions (see Griffiths et al 2004;Jacome 1984;Satoh et al 2011). The study also included the impact music has on neurodegenerative diseases (see Downey et al 2013;Drapeau et al 2009;Hailstone, Omar & Warren 2009;Omar et al 2011).…”