Abstract
BackgroundPeople with autism spectrum conditions (ASC) report heightened olfaction. Previous sensory experiments in people with ASC have reported hypersensitivity across visual, tactile, and auditory domains, but not olfaction. The aims of the present study were to investigate olfactory sensitivity in ASC, and to test the association of sensitivity to autistic traits.MethodsWe recruited 17 adult males diagnosed with ASC and 17 typical adult male controls and tested their olfactory sensitivity using the Alcohol Sniff Test (AST), a standardised clinical evaluation of olfactory detection. The AST involves varying the distance between subject and stimulus until an odour is barely detected. Participants with ASC also completed the Autism Spectrum Quotient (AQ) as a measure of autism traits.ResultsThe ASC group detected the odour at a mean distance of 24.1 cm (SD =11.5) from the nose, compared to the control group, who detected it at a significantly shorter mean distance of 14.4 cm (SD =5.9). Detection distance was independent of age and IQ for both groups, but showed a significant positive correlation with autistic traits in the ASC group (r =0.522).ConclusionsThis is the first experimental demonstration, as far as the authors are aware, of superior olfactory perception in ASC and showing that greater olfactory sensitivity is correlated with a higher number of autistic traits. This is consistent with results from previous findings showing hypersensitivity in other sensory domains and may help explain anecdotal and questionnaire accounts of heightened olfactory sensitivity in ASC. Results are discussed in terms of possible underlying neurophysiology.
Highlights
People with autism spectrum conditions (ASC) report heightened olfaction
We investigated the relationship between olfactory hypersensitivity and degree of autistic traits in those with ASC, using scores from the Autism-Spectrum Quotient (AQ)
The present study provides the first experimental demonstration of enhanced olfactory sensitivity in people with ASC compared to controls
Summary
People with autism spectrum conditions (ASC) report heightened olfaction. Individuals with high-functioning ASC often describe heightened sensory perceptions, across different modalities, which are experienced as over-arousing and reported exceptional perception of absolute pitch in music and language [12,13], and they are reported to have superior pitch sensitivity compared to controls [14]. Taken together, all these examples suggest that people with ASC sense the world in a different way compared with others. An experimental study of visual acuity reported by our lab [18] found that people with ASC were better than controls at perceiving the location of the gap in targets consisting of letter C’s presented on a computer screen, and has been replicated by a study from an independent lab [21]
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