title: Fast response to human voices in autism.
abstract: Individuals with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) are reported to allocate less spontaneous attention to voices. Here, we investigated how vocal sounds are processed in ASD adults, when those sounds are attended. Participants were asked to react as fast as possible to target stimuli (either voices or strings) while ignoring distracting stimuli. Response times (RTs) were measured. Results showed that, similar to neurotypical (NT) adults, ASD adults were faster to recognize voices compared to strings. Surprisingly, ASD adults had even shorter RTs for voices than the NT adults, suggesting a faster voice recognition process. To investigate the acoustic underpinnings of this effect, we created auditory chimeras that retained only the temporal or the spectral features of voices. For the NT group, no RT advantage was found for the chimeras compared to strings: both sets of features had to be present to observe an RT advantage. However, for the ASD group, shorter RTs were observed for both chimeras. These observations indicate that the previously observed attentional deficit to voices in ASD individuals could be due to a failure to combine acoustic features, even though such features may be well represented at a sensory level.
authors.affiliation: NTT Communication Science Laboratories, 3-1 Morinosato Wakamiya, Atsugi, Kanagawa, 243-0198 Japan.|Department of Human Sciences, Tokyo Metropolitan University, 1-1 Minami-Osawa, Hachioji, Tokyo, 192-0397 Japan.
authors.forename: I-Fan
authors.initials: IF
authors.lastname: Lin
authors.affiliation: School of Creative Arts, Queen's University Belfast, Belfast, BT7 1NN, United Kingdom.
authors.forename: Trevor R
authors.initials: TR
authors.lastname: Agus
authors.affiliation: Département Action et Cognition en Situation Opérationnelle, Institut de Recherche Biomédicale des Armées, 91223 Brétigny sur Orge, France.
authors.forename: Clara
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Suied
authors.affiliation: CNRS UMR 8248, Ecole normale supérieure, 29 rue d'Ulm, 75005 Paris, France.
authors.forename: Daniel
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Pressnitzer
authors.affiliation: Medical Institute of Developmental Disabilities Research, Showa University, Kitakarasuyama 6-11-11, Setagaya, Tokyo, 157-8577 Japan.|ATR Brain Information Communication Research Laboratory Group, Hikaridai 2-2-2, Sourakugun Seikacho, Kyoto, 619-0237 Japan.
authors.forename: Takashi
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Yamada
authors.affiliation: Medical Institute of Developmental Disabilities Research, Showa University, Kitakarasuyama 6-11-11, Setagaya, Tokyo, 157-8577 Japan.
authors.forename: Yoko
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Komine
authors.affiliation: Medical Institute of Developmental Disabilities Research, Showa University, Kitakarasuyama 6-11-11, Setagaya, Tokyo, 157-8577 Japan.
authors.forename: Nobumasa
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Kato
authors.affiliation: NTT Communication Science Laboratories, 3-1 Morinosato Wakamiya, Atsugi, Kanagawa, 243-0198 Japan.|Department of Information Processing, Interdisciplinary Graduate School of Science and Engineering, Tokyo Institute of Technology, 4259 Nagatsuta, Midori, Yokohama, Kanagawa, 226-8503 Japan.
authors.forename: Makio
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Kashino
mesh_terms: D000161:Acoustic Stimulation / Q000379:methods*; D000328:Adult; D000067877:Autism Spectrum Disorder / Q000503:physiopathology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D046709:Pattern Recognition, Physiological; D011930:Reaction Time / Q000502:physiology*; D021641:Recognition, Psychology; D014831:Voice; D055815:Young Adult