Abstract
Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) has an intriguing auditory processing profile. Individuals show enhanced pitch discrimination, yet often find seemingly innocuous sounds distressing. This study used two behavioural experiments to examine whether an increased capacity for processing sounds in ASD could underlie both the difficulties and enhanced abilities found in the auditory domain. Autistic and non-autistic young adults performed a set of auditory detection and identification tasks designed to tax processing capacity and establish the extent of perceptual capacity in each population. Tasks were constructed to highlight both the benefits and disadvantages of increased capacity. Autistic people were better at detecting additional unexpected and expected sounds (increased distraction and superior performance respectively). This suggests that they have increased auditory perceptual capacity relative to non-autistic people. This increased capacity may offer an explanation for the auditory superiorities seen in autism (e.g. heightened pitch detection). Somewhat counter-intuitively, this same ‘skill’ could result in the sensory overload that is often reported – which subsequently can interfere with social communication. Reframing autistic perceptual processing in terms of increased capacity, rather than a filtering deficit or inability to maintain focus, increases our understanding of this complex condition, and has important practical implications that could be used to develop intervention programs to minimise the distress that is often seen in response to sensory stimuli.
Highlights
Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) is most often associated with social communication difficulties and the presence of rigid and repetitive behaviors (APA, 2013)
This, in turn, leads to a variety of coping behaviors that range from grimacing and ear shielding to screaming (Attwood, 1998). We suggest that both the strengths and difficulties seen with respect to auditory processing in autism might be subserved by increased perceptual capacity
Participants in the ASD group had received a clinical diagnosis of autism from a trained, independent clinician who used the criteria listed in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fourth or Fifth Edition (American Psychiatric Association, 1994, 2013) and reached threshold for an ASD on Module 4 of the Autism Diagnostic Observational Schedule (ADOS; Lord, Rutter, DiLavore, & Risi, 2002)
Summary
Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) is most often associated with social communication difficulties and the presence of rigid and repetitive behaviors (APA, 2013). Alongside these symptoms, are unusual perceptual and attentional processes that are increasingly being considered as central to the condition (Taylor et al, 2013). One possible explanation for this diverse set of observations is that autistic individuals have an increased perceptual capacity relative to neurotypical individuals which allows them to process more information at any given time.
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