Enhanced segregation of concurrent sounds with similar spectral uncertainties in individuals with autism spectrum disorder

Abstract

When acoustic signals from different sound sources are mixed upon arrival at the ears, the auditory system organizes these acoustic elements by their features. This study shows that individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) performed better in terms of hearing a target sequence among distractors that had similar spectral uncertainties. Their superior performance in this task indicates an enhanced discrimination between auditory streams with the same spectral uncertainties but different spectro-temporal details. The enhanced discrimination of acoustic components may be related to the absence of the automatic grouping of acoustic components with the same features, which results in difficulties in speech perception in a noisy environment. On the other hand, the ASD group and the control group had similar performance in hearing a target sequence among distractors that had different spatial cues defined by interaural intensity differences.