title: The effects of autism and alexithymia on physiological and verbal responsiveness to music.
abstract: It has been suggested that individuals with autism will be less responsive to the emotional content of music than typical individuals. With the aim of testing this hypothesis, a group of high-functioning adults on the autism spectrum was compared with a group of matched controls on two measures of emotional responsiveness to music, comprising physiological and verbal measures. Impairment in participants ability to verbalize their emotions (type-II alexithymia) was also assessed. The groups did not differ significantly on physiological responsiveness, but the autism group was significantly lower on the verbal measure. However, inclusion of the alexithymia score as a mediator variable nullified this group difference, suggesting that the difference was due not to absence of underlying emotional responsiveness to music in autism, but to a reduced ability to articulate it.
authors: Department of Psychology, Whitehead Building, Goldsmiths, University of London, New Cross, London SE14 6NW, UK. r.allen@gold.ac.uk
authors: Rory
authors: R
authors: Allen
authors: Rob
authors: R
authors: Davis
authors: Elisabeth
authors: E
authors: Hill
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000342:Affective Symptoms / Q000503:physiopathology / Q000523:psychology*; D001321:Autistic Disorder / Q000503:physiopathology / Q000523:psychology*; D004644:Emotions / Q000502:physiology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009146:Music / Q000523:psychology*; D014705:Verbal Behavior / Q000502:physiology*