Department of Cognitive Science, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Jerusalem, Israel.
Computational Auditory Perception Group, Max Planck Institute for Empirical Aesthetics, Frankfurt am Main, Germany.
Autism Res. 2023 Jun;16(6):1161-1173. doi: 10.1002/aur.2926. Epub 2023 Apr 27.
Sensorimotor synchronization to external events is fundamental to social interactions. Adults with autism spectrum condition (ASC) have difficulty with synchronization, manifested in both social and non-social situations, such as paced finger-tapping tasks, where participants synchronize their taps to metronome beats. What limits ASC's synchronization is a matter of debate, especially whether it stems from reduced online correction of synchronization error (the "slow update" account) or from noisy internal representations (the "elevated internal noise" account). To test these opposing theories, we administered a synchronization-continuation tapping task, with and without tempo changes. Participants were asked to synchronize with the metronome and continue the tempo when it stopped. Since continuation is based only on internal representations, the slow update hypothesis predicts no difficulty, whereas the elevated noise hypothesis predicts similar or enhanced difficulties. Additionally, tempo changes were introduced, to assess whether adequate updating of internal representations to external changes is possible when given a longer temporal window for updating. We found that the ability to keep the metronome's tempo after it stopped did not differ between ASC and typically developing (TD) individuals. Importantly, when given a longer period to adapt to external changes, keeping a modified tempo was also similar in ASC. These results suggest that synchronization difficulties in ASC stem from slow update rather than elevated internal noise.
对外界事件的运动感知同步是社交互动的基础。患有自闭症谱系障碍（ASC）的成年人在同步方面存在困难，这种困难表现在社交和非社交情境中，例如有节奏的手指敲击任务，参与者需要根据节拍器的节拍来同步他们的敲击。限制 ASC 同步的原因尚存在争议，特别是它是否源于同步错误的在线纠正减少（“更新缓慢”假说），还是源于内部表示的噪声增加（“内部噪声升高”假说）。为了检验这些相互矛盾的理论，我们进行了一项同步延续敲击任务，有和没有节奏变化。要求参与者与节拍器同步，并在节拍器停止时继续保持节奏。由于延续仅基于内部表示，因此更新缓慢假说预测不会有困难，而内部噪声升高假说则预测会有类似或更严重的困难。此外，我们引入了节奏变化，以评估在更长的更新时间窗口下，是否有可能对外部变化进行足够的内部表示更新。我们发现，在节拍器停止后，ASC 和典型发育（TD）个体保持节拍器节奏的能力没有差异。重要的是，当有更长的时间来适应外部变化时，ASC 保持修改后的节奏也相似。这些结果表明，ASC 中的同步困难源于更新缓慢，而不是内部噪声升高。
