Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-gb8f7 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-24T14:31:11.337Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Atypical context-dependent speech processing in autism

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 August 2020

Alan Chi Lun Yu Open the ORCID record for Alan Chi Lun Yu [Opens in a new window]  and
Carol Kit Sum To Open the ORCID record for Carol Kit Sum To [Opens in a new window]
Alan Chi Lun Yu*
Affiliation:
University of Chicago
Carol Kit Sum To
Affiliation:
University of Hong Kong
*
*Corresponding author. Email: [email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

The ability to take contextual information into account is essential for successful speech processing. This study examines individuals with high-functioning autism and those without in terms of how they adjust their perceptual expectation while discriminating speech sounds in different phonological contexts. Listeners were asked to discriminate pairs of sibilant-vowel monosyllables. Typically, discriminability of sibilants increases when the sibilants are embedded in perceptually enhancing contexts (if the appropriate context-specific perceptual adjustment were performed) and decreases in perceptually diminishing contexts. This study found a reduction in the differences in perceptual response across enhancing and diminishing contexts among high-functioning autistic individuals relative to the neurotypical controls. The reduction in perceptual expectation adjustment is consistent with an increase in autonomy in low-level perceptual processing in autism and a reduction in the influence of top-down information from surrounding information.

Keywords

context-dependent speech perceptionhigh-functioning autismsound discriminationsibilant perception
Type
Original Article
Information
Applied Psycholinguistics , Volume 41 , Issue 5 , September 2020 , pp. 1045 - 1059
Check for updates
Copyright
© The Author(s), 2020. Published by Cambridge University Press

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

American Speech-Language-Hearing Association Audiologic Assessment Panel. (1997). Guidelines for audiologic screening. Rockville, MD: Author.Google Scholar
Baron-Cohen, S., Wheelwright, S., Skinner, R., Martin, J., & Clubley, E. (2001). The autism-spectrum quotient (AQ): Evidence from Asperger syndrome/high-functioning autism, males, females, scientists and mathematicians. Journal of Autism & Developmental Disorders, 31, 5–17.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Bilker, W. B., Hansen, J. A., Corensinger, C. M., Richard, J., Cur, R. E., & Gur, R. C. (2012). Development of abbreviated nine-item forms of the Raven’s Standard Progressive Matrices test. Assessment, 19, 354–369.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Bonnel, A., Mottron, L., Peretz, I., Trudel, M., Gallun, E., & Bonnel, A.-M. (2003). Enhanced pitch sensitivity in individuals with autism: A signal detection analysis. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 15, 226–235.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
van de Cruys, S., Evers, K., van der Hallen, R., van Eylen, B. B. L., de-Wit, L., & Wagemans, J. (2014). Precise minds in uncertain worlds: Predictive coding in autism. Psychological Review, 121, 649–675.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Happé, F. (1999). Autism: Cognitive deficit or cognitive style? Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 3, 216–222.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Heaton, P., Davis, R. E., & Happé, F. G. E. (2008). Research Note: Exceptional absolute pitch perception for spoken words in an able adult with autism. Neuropsychologia, 46, 2095–2098.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Liberman, A. M., Harris, K. S., Hoffman, H. S., & Griffith, B. C. (1957). The discrimination of speech sounds within and across phoneme boundaries. Journal of Experimental Psychology, 54, 358–368.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Lord, C., Rutter, M., DiLavore, P. C., Risi, S., Gotham, K., & Bishop, S. (2012). Autism Diagnostic Observation Schedul (2nd ed.). Torrance, CA: Western Psychological Services.Google Scholar
Mann, V. A. (1986). Distinguishing universal and language-dependent levels of speech perception: Evidence from Japanese listeners’ perception of English “l” and “r”. Cognition, 24, 169–196.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Mann, V. A., & Bruno Repp, B. H. (1980). Influence of vocalic context on perception of the [ʃ]-[s] distinction. Perception & Psychophysics, 28, 213–228.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Mirman, D. (2014). Growth Curve Analysis and Visualization Using R. Chapman and Hall / CRC, Boca Raton, Florida.Google Scholar
Mitterer, H. (2006). On the causes of compensation for coarticulation: Evidence for phonological mediation. Perception & Psychophysics, 68, 1227–1240.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Mottron, L., Dawson, M., Soulières, I., Hubert, B., & Burack, J. (2006). Enhanced perceptual functioning in autism: An update, and eight principles of autistic perception. Journal of Autism & Developmental Disorders, 36, 27–43.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
O’Connor, K. (2012). Auditory processing in autism spectrum disorder: A review. Neuroscience and Biobehavioral Reviews, 36, 836–854.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Ohala, J. J. (1993a). Coarticulation and phonology. Language and Speech, 36, 155–170.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Ohala, J. J. (1993b). The phonetics of sound change. In Jones, C. (Ed.), Historical linguistics: Problems and perspectives (pp. 237–278). London: Longman Academic.Google Scholar
Ota, M., Stewart, M. E., Petrou, A. M., & Dickie, C. (2015). Lexical effects on children’s speech processing: Individual differences reflected in the autism-spectrum quotient (AQ). Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research, 58, 422–433.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pisoni, D. B. (1973). Auditory and phonetic memory codes in the discrimination of consonants and vowels. Perception & Psychophysics, 13, 253–260.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Repp, B. H. (1981). Two strategies in fricative discrimination. Perception & Psychophysics, 30, 217–227.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Sjerps, M. J., Mitterer, H., & McQueen, J. M. (2011). Listening to different speakers: On the time-course of perceptual compensation for vocal-tract characteristics. Neuropsychologia, 49, 3831–3846.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Stephens, J. D. W., & Holt, L. L. (2003). Preceding phonetic context affects perception of monspeech. Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 114, 3036–3069.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Stewart, M. E., & Ota, M. (2008). Lexical effects on speech perception in individuals with “autistic” traits. Cognition, 109, 157–162.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Stewart, M. E., Petrou, A. M., & Ota, M. (2018). Categorical speech perception in adults with autism spectrum conditions. Journal of Autism & Developmental Disorders, 48, 72–82.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Turnbull, R. J. (2015). Assessing the listener-oriented account of predictability-based phonetic reduction. PhD thesis, Ohio State University.Google Scholar
Viswanathan, N., Magnuson, J. S., & Fowler, C. A. (2010). Compensation for coarticulation: Disentangling auditory and gestural theories of perception of coarticulatory effects in speech. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 36, 1005–1015.Google Scholar
Walenski, M., Tager-Flusberg, H., & Ullman, M. T. (2006). Language in autism. In Moldin, S. O. & Rubenstein, J. L. R. (Eds.), Understanding autism: From basic neuroscience to treatment (pp. 175–203). Boca Raton, FL: Taylor & Francis Books.Google Scholar
World Health Organization. (1990). International classification of diseases (10th Rev.). Geneva: Author.Google Scholar
You, R. S., Serniclaes, W., Rider, D., & Chabane, N. (2017). On the nature of the speech perception deficits in children with autism spectrum disorders. Research in Developmental Disabilities, 61, 158–171.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Yu, A. C. L. (2010). Perceptual compensation is correlated with individuals’ “autistic” traits: Implications for models of sound change. PLOS ONE, 5, e11950. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0011950.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Yu, A. C. L. (2016). Vowel-dependent variation in Cantonese /S/ from an individual-difference perspective. Journal of Acoustical Society of America, 139, 1672–1690.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Yu, A. C. L. (2019). On the nature of the perception-production link: Individual variability in English sibilant-vowel coarticulation. Laboratory Phonology: Journal of the Association for Laboratory Phonology, 10, 2. doi: 10.5334/labphon.97.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Yu, A. C. L., & Lee, H. (2014). The stability of perceptual compensation for coarticulation within and across individuals: A cross-validation study. Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 136, 382–388.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed