Graduate School of Information Science and Technology, The University of Tokyo, Tokyo, Japan.
International Research Center for Neurointelligence (WPI-IRCN), UTIAS, The University of Tokyo, Tokyo, Japan.
PLoS One. 2023 Sep 28;18(9):e0285591. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0285591. eCollection 2023.
How non-autistic persons modulate their speech rhythm while talking to autistic (AUT) individuals remains unclear. We investigated two types of phonological characteristics: (1) the frequency power of each prosodic, syllabic, and phonetic rhythm and (2) the dynamic interaction among these rhythms using speech between AUT and neurotypical (NT) individuals. Eight adults diagnosed with AUT (all men; age range, 24-44 years) and eight age-matched non-autistic NT adults (three women, five men; age range, 23-45 years) participated in this study. Six NT and eight AUT respondents were asked by one of the two NT questioners (both men) to share their recent experiences on 12 topics. We included 87 samples of AUT-directed speech (from an NT questioner to an AUT respondent), 72 of NT-directed speech (from an NT questioner to an NT respondent), 74 of AUT speech (from an AUT respondent to an NT questioner), and 55 of NT speech (from an NT respondent to an NT questioner). We found similarities between AUT speech and AUT-directed speech, and between NT speech and NT-directed speech. Prosody and interactions between prosodic, syllabic, and phonetic rhythms were significantly weaker in AUT-directed and AUT speech than in NT-directed and NT speech, respectively. AUT speech showed weaker dynamic processing from higher to lower phonological bands (e.g. from prosody to syllable) than NT speech. Further, we found that the weaker the frequency power of prosody in NT and AUT respondents, the weaker the frequency power of prosody in NT questioners. This suggests that NT individuals spontaneously imitate speech rhythms of the NT and AUT interlocutor. Although the speech sample of questioners came from just two NT individuals, our findings may suggest the possibility that the phonological characteristics of a speaker influence those of the interlocutor.
非自闭症个体在与自闭症个体（AUT）交谈时如何调节他们的言语节奏尚不清楚。我们研究了两种类型的语音特征：（1）韵律、音节和语音节奏的每个韵律的频率功率，以及（2）使用 AUT 和神经典型（NT）个体之间的言语来研究这些节奏之间的动态相互作用。八名被诊断为自闭症的成年人（均为男性；年龄范围，24-44 岁）和八名年龄匹配的非自闭症 NT 成年人（三女五男；年龄范围，23-45 岁）参加了这项研究。六名 NT 和八名 AUT 受访者被两名 NT 提问者中的一名（均为男性）要求就 12 个主题分享他们最近的经历。我们包括 87 个 AUT 指向的语音样本（来自 NT 提问者到 AUT 受访者）、72 个 NT 指向的语音样本（来自 NT 提问者到 NT 受访者）、74 个 AUT 语音样本（来自 AUT 受访者到 NT 提问者）和 55 个 NT 语音样本（来自 NT 受访者到 NT 提问者）。我们发现 AUT 语音和 AUT 指向的语音之间以及 NT 语音和 NT 指向的语音之间存在相似之处。与 NT 指向的语音和 NT 语音相比，AUT 指向的语音和 AUT 语音中的韵律和韵律、音节和语音节奏之间的相互作用明显较弱。AUT 语音显示出从较高到较低语音频段（例如从韵律到音节）的动态处理较弱，而 NT 语音则较弱。此外，我们发现 NT 和 AUT 受访者的韵律频率功率越弱，NT 提问者的韵律频率功率越弱。这表明 NT 个体自发地模仿 NT 和 AUT 对话者的言语节奏。尽管提问者的语音样本仅来自两名 NT 个体，但我们的研究结果可能表明说话者的语音特征会影响对话者的语音特征。
