title: No rapid audiovisual recalibration in adults on the autism spectrum.
abstract: Autism spectrum disorders (ASD) are characterized by difficulties in social cognition, but are also associated with atypicalities in sensory and perceptual processing. Several groups have reported that autistic individuals show reduced integration of socially relevant audiovisual signals, which may contribute to the higher-order social and cognitive difficulties observed in autism. Here we use a newly devised technique to study instantaneous adaptation to audiovisual asynchrony in autism. Autistic and typical participants were presented with sequences of brief visual and auditory stimuli, varying in asynchrony over a wide range, from 512 ms auditory-lead to 512 ms auditory-lag, and judged whether they seemed to be synchronous. Typical adults showed strong adaptation effects, with trials proceeded by an auditory-lead needing more auditory-lead to seem simultaneous, and vice versa. However, autistic observers showed little or no adaptation, although their simultaneity curves were as narrow as the typical adults. This result supports recent Bayesian models that predict reduced adaptation effects in autism. As rapid audiovisual recalibration may be fundamental for the optimisation of speech comprehension, recalibration problems could render language processing more difficult in autistic individuals, hindering social communication.
authors.affiliation: Department of Translational Research On New Technologies in Medicine and Surgery, University of Pisa.
authors.forename: Marco
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Turi
authors.affiliation: Centre for Research in Autism and Education (CRAE), UCL Institute of Education, University College London, UK.
authors.forename: Themelis
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Karaminis
authors.affiliation: Centre for Research in Autism and Education (CRAE), UCL Institute of Education, University College London, UK.|School of Psychology, University of Western Australia, Perth, Australia.
authors.forename: Elizabeth
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Pellicano
authors.affiliation: Department of Neuroscience, Psychology, Pharmacology and Child Health, University of Florence, Italy.|School of Psychology, University of Western Australia, Perth, Australia.
authors.forename: David
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Burr
mesh_terms: D000161:Acoustic Stimulation; D000223:Adaptation, Psychological; D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D001307:Auditory Perception; D000067877:Autism Spectrum Disorder / Q000503:physiopathology / Q000523:psychology*; D001499:Bayes Theorem; D016022:Case-Control Studies; D032882:Comprehension; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D010775:Photic Stimulation; D011930:Reaction Time; D013060:Speech; D013067:Speech Perception; D014796:Visual Perception