No differences between adults with and without autism in audiovisual synchrony perception.
Ricarda F Weiland, Tinca Jc Polderman, Dirk Ja Smit and 2 others
PMID 36071692WHAT IT FOUND
Adults with and without autism judged whether sounds and images happened together similarly.
Both groups were influenced by the order of stimuli in previous trials, so no autism-specific timing difference was found.
Key findings
01The time window in which adults judged a sound and image as simultaneous did not differ between adults with autism and adults without autism.
02The shift in synchrony judgments caused by previous trial order did not differ between adults with autism and adults without autism.
03Autism trait scores and sensory sensitivity scores were not related to either the synchrony window or the shift caused by previous trial order.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they found
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What it does not show
The autism and non-autism groups were not matched for age. More trials were excluded from the autism group because of slow responses: 2.8% of trials in the autism group and 1.2% of trials in the non-autism group were excluded. Four autism participants were excluded because their synchrony window was larger than 400 ms, and nine participants were excluded because they reported synchrony in 75% of trials where the delay was 400 ms; two of those nine had autism. The task used simple visual patterns and noise bursts. Age effects were examined by sorting participants into overlapping groups of 11 at one time point, not by following people over time. The study included adults only.
Declared interests
The authors declared no potential conflicts of interest. The work was supported by an NWO ZonMW Top grant.
The easy way to misread this
Do not conclude that adults with autism have no differences in audiovisual synchrony perception. This study tested one laboratory timing task with simple shapes and sounds, and it found no group difference in that task only.