Pitch Direction Perception And Auditory Global Local Processing In Autism And Typical Development

Download or read book Pitch Direction Perception and Auditory Global Local Processing in Autism and Typical Development written by Esther Germain and published by . This book was released on 2016 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Individuals with Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD) often present atypical auditory perception. Previous work has reported both enhanced low-level pitch discrimination and superior abilities to detect local pitch structure on high-level melodic tasks in ASD. However, it is unclear how low and high levels of auditory perception are related in ASD or typical development (TD), or how this relationship might change with development and rate of stimulus presentation. To these aims, in the present study, children with ASD and TD children matched in age were tested on a low-level pitch direction (PD) task and a high-level melodic task. Groups performed similarly on both pitch tasks. Moreover, lowlevel pitch direction ability predicted performance in high-level global-local (GL) pitch perception, but this relationship was stronger in ASD. Age did not affect the relationship between low-level and high-level pitch performance in either ASD or TD. However, there was a more positive effect of age on GL task performance in TD than ASD after accounting for the effect of low-level PD performance. Finally, there was no effect of stimulus rate upon the relationship between low-level and high-level pitch performance in either group. The present findings provide a better understanding of how perception is associated across levels in ASD versus TD. This work is key to better understanding individual differences in auditory perception and to refine ASD phenotypes.