Abstract
The ability to integrate auditory and visual information is a crucial part of everyday life. The Temporal Integration Window (TIW) provides a measure of how much asynchrony can be tolerated between auditory and visual streams before one loses the perception of a unitary audiovisual event. Previous investigations of the TIW in individuals with Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD) show mixed results in how performance compares to typically developed (TD) individuals. The current study looked at the TIW across a range of audiovisual stimuli types to further examine this issue. This range of stimuli included the following audiovisual pairings: 1) a beep with a flashing circle (BF), 2) a point-light drummer with a drumbeat (PLD), 3) a face moving to say a single word and the voice saying the word (FV). Seven adult males with ASD, and their age, sex and IQ matches were shown the three audiovisual stimuli with varying degrees of audiovisual asynchrony. These levels of asynchrony included presenting the auditory information either before or after the visual information by 333, 267, 200, 133 and 67 ms. In separate blocks participants were asked to make either Temporal Order Judgements (TOJ) or Synchrony Judgements (SJ) when presented with these stimuli. For both TOJ and SJ judgments psychophysical fits to the data provided estimates of the Point of Subjective Synchrony (PSS) and the width of the TIW. We ran ANOVAs on the estimates of PSS and TIW width using within factors of judgement (SJ, TOJ) and stimulus (BF, PLD, FV), and a between factor of group (ASD, TD). No significant effects were found for PSS. Results for TIW width revealed a main effect of judgement (wider TIW for TOJ than SJ) as well as a main effect of group (wider TIW for ASD than TD).
Meeting abstract presented at VSS 2013