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Effects of Age and Attention on Auditory Global–Local Processing in Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder

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Abstract

In vision, typically-developing (TD) individuals perceive “global” (whole) before “local” (detailed) features, whereas individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) exhibit a local bias. However, auditory global–local distinctions are less clear in ASD, particularly in terms of age and attention effects. To these aims, here ASD and TD children judged local and global pitch structure in nine-tone melodies. Both groups showed a similar global precedence effect, but ASD children were less sensitive to global interference than TD children at younger ages. There was no effect of attention task. These findings provide novel evidence of developmental differences in auditory perception and may help to refine sensory phenotypes in ASD.

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Acknowledgments

The authors thank the families who participated in this study. We thank C. D’Aguiar and E. Kossivas for their assistance with data collection. We acknowledge the principal investigators and members of the Pathways in ASD Study Team (www.asdpathways.ca) and Simons Simplex Collection (www.sfari.org) projects, under which certain clinical and diagnostic measures were collected. We appreciate obtaining access to phenotypic data from the Simons Foundation Autism Research Initiative (SFARI) Base. Approved researchers can obtain the SSC population data set described in this study (http://sfari.org/resources/sfari-base) by applying at https://base.sfari.org. We thank the Data Coordinating Centre at the Montreal Neurological Institute (A. C. Evans, S. Das, C. Rogers, P. Kostopoulos, V. Fonov, I. Leppert) and NeuroDevNet Informatics Core for data management infrastructure. This work was sponsored by NeuroDevNet (www.neurodevnet.ca) and the Canadian Institutes of Health Research to KH.

Author Contributions

All authors contributed to the design of the study, NEVF, TO, AT and KDT were responsible for data collection, NEVF and TO performed statistical analyses and interpreted data NEVF, TO and KLH drafted the manuscript.

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    1. International Laboratory for Brain Music and Sound Research (BRAMS), Pavillon 1420 Mont-Royal, Department of Psychology, University of Montreal, C.P. 6128, Succ. Centre-Ville, Montreal, QC, H3C 3J7, Canada

      Nicholas E. V. Foster, Tia Ouimet, Ana Tryfon & Krista L. Hyde

    2. Faculty of Medicine, McIntyre Medical Building, McGill University, 3655 Sir William Osler, Montreal, QC, H3G 1Y6, Canada

      Nicholas E. V. Foster, Tia Ouimet, Ana Tryfon & Krista L. Hyde

    3. Holland Bloorview Kids Rehabilitation Hospital, University of Toronto, 150 Kilgour Road, Toronto, ON, M4G 1R8, Canada

      Krissy Doyle-Thomas & Evdokia Anagnostou

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    1. Nicholas E. V. Foster
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    EA has received consultation fees from NOVARTIS and Seaside Therapeutics and has an unrestricted grant from Sanofi Canada.

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    For NeuroDevNet ASD Imaging Group (http://www.neurodevnet.ca/research/asd).

    Nicholas E. V. Foster, Tia Ouimet have contributed equally to this work.

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    Foster, N.E.V., Ouimet, T., Tryfon, A. et al. Effects of Age and Attention on Auditory Global–Local Processing in Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder. J Autism Dev Disord 46, 1415–1428 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10803-015-2684-2

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