Pitch perception in individuals of Cantonese-speaking adults with autism spectrum disorders

Abstract

Studies showed that individuals with Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD) demonstrated enhanced pitch perception ability when compared to typical individuals. This study compared pitch perception of 20 adults with ASD and 20 matched neurotypical (NT) controls who spoke Cantonese as their native language. The matching parameters included gender, age, education background, and experience of formal musical training. Real word, nonsense word, and non-speech stimulus pairs with different levels of pitch differences were synthesized. In an auditory discrimination task, participants had to determine whether the stimuli in a pair were the same or different. Results revealed no significant difference between the ASD and the control groups in the three stimulus types implying that individuals with ASD did not have superior pitch perception ability when compared to NT controls. Instead, people with musical training, regardless of group membership, showed better performance in detecting small differences in pairs in all three stimulus types.