Perception and adaptation to talker variability in receptive prosody in ASD

自闭症谱系障碍患者对说话者接受韵律变异性的感知和适应

• 批准号: 10523115
• 负责人: LOISA BENNETTO
• 金额: $ 23.1万
• 依托单位: UNIVERSITY OF ROCHESTER
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 财政年份: 2021
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2021-12-01 至 2024-11-30
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10523115
• 关键词: Acoustics; Address; Adolescent; Adult; Affective; Age; Benchmarking; Calibration; Categories; Characteristics; Cognitive; Communication; Compensation; Complex; Comprehension; Country; Cues; Data; Databases; Development; Diagnosis; Emotions; Equity; Exposure to; Failure; Foundations; Gender; Global Change; Heterogeneity; Human; Impairment; Individual; Internet; Judgment; Knowledge; Laboratories; Language; Learning Module; Linguistics; Literature; Measurement; Measures; Methodology; Pattern; Perception; Perceptual learning; Physiological; Population; Population Heterogeneity; Production; Research; Research Personnel; Sampling; Sensory; Signal Transduction; Speech; Stimulus; Subgroup; Symptoms; Testing; Time; Training; Transcend; Validation; Variant; adolescent with autism spectrum disorder; adult with autism spectrum disorder; autism spectrum disorder; autistic children; cohort; experimental study; flexibility; individuals with autism spectrum disorder; innovation; insight; intervention program; language impairment; natural language; novel; online intervention; prototype; response; scaffold; social communication; social communication impairment; social deficits; social factors; statistics; telehealth

Project Summary/Abstract This project will investigate a topic of significance in advancing linguistic research in ASD: the ability to navigate across-talker variability in speech prosody (e.g., rhythm, intonation, tones). Although the importance of studying receptive prosody in ASD has been recognized for decades, the literature remains relatively small and findings often inconclusive. One fundamental aspect of receptive prosody, which has so far been largely overlooked, is the variability of human speech. Depending on their age, gender, and other physiological and cultural factors, talkers can differ substantially in how they use prosody to express meaning. Receptive prosody therefore needs to be adaptive, compensating for these differences. This insight has significant implications for individuals with ASD, whose perception has been found to be highly accurate locally and less impacted by top-down knowledge and global changes in statistics. If their receptive prosody is not appropriately modulated according to the across-talker variability that is ubiquitous in natural language, it would severely limit the accuracy of their comprehension. This is the hypothesis we test, for the first time, in this proposal. Experiments proposed here capitalize on a recent innovation made by our team, testing adaptation of receptive grammatical and pragmatic prosody in large samples of neurotypical (NT) adults. Our research demonstrates that, when exposed to a novel talker whose prosodic productions are slightly different from what is normally expected given the general statistics of the input, adult listeners robustly recalibrate how they categorize the talker’s meaning (e.g., Is this a statement or a question?) after only 10 minutes of exposure. Building on this innovation, we will examine similar abilities to perceive, categorize, and adapt to subtle acoustic variations in receptive prosody in adolescents with ASD and matched NT controls. To better account for heterogeneity among individual subjects, as well as examine possible ASD subgroups (e.g., with and without language impairment), we will obtain the same measurements locally via laboratory-based testing as well as nationwide, by leveraging a new web-delivered testing paradigm launched under this project. This will be the largest perceptual experiment of receptive prosody to date, providing the foundation of a novel research framework for investigating core mechanisms underlying receptive prosody in ASD and the causes of deficits hampering their linguistic and pragmatic communication. Beyond expanding conceptual understanding, the new knowledge about adaptivity and plasticity of receptive prosody in adolescents with ASD can inform the development of novel intervention programs. The web-delivered experiments will serve as a prototype for future research in our labs and beyond, facilitating effective testing of a diverse population across the country. This paradigm can be further developed to facilitate effective telehealth diagnoses and online interventions that meet the perceptual and cognitive needs of children and adults with ASD.

项目摘要/摘要 这个项目将调查一个对促进自闭症语言学研究具有重要意义的话题： 在语音韵律(例如，节奏、语调、语调)中导航说话者的可变性。虽然重要的是 对ASD的接受性韵律的研究已有几十年的历史，但文献相对较少 调查结果往往是不确定的。接受性韵律的一个基本方面，到目前为止，它主要是 被忽视的是，人类语言的可变性。取决于他们的年龄、性别和其他生理和 由于文化因素，说话者使用韵律来表达意思的方式可能会有很大的不同。乐于接受 因此，韵律需要是适应性的，以弥补这些差异。这一见解具有重要的意义 对ASD患者的影响，他们的感知在当地被发现非常准确，而不是 受自上而下的知识和全球统计变化的影响。如果他们的接受性韵律不恰当 根据自然语言中普遍存在的说话者的可变性进行调制，它将严重限制 他们理解的准确性。这是我们在这项提议中第一次检验的假设。 这里提出的实验利用了我们团队最近的一项创新，测试了 大样本神经典型(NT)成人的接受性语法和语用韵律。我们的研究 展示了这一点，当接触到一个新的说话者时，他的韵律产物与 考虑到输入的一般统计数据，成年听众会坚定地重新校准 它们对说话者的意思进行分类(例如，这是一个陈述还是一个疑问句？)仅在10分钟后 曝光。在这一创新的基础上，我们将检查类似的感知、分类和适应能力 ASD和匹配的NT对照组青少年接受性韵律的细微声学变化。为了更好地 考虑单个受试者之间的异质性，以及检查可能的ASD亚组(例如， 并且没有语言障碍)，我们将通过实验室在本地获得相同的测量结果 测试以及全国范围内的测试，通过利用在此基础上推出的新的网络交付测试范式 项目。这将是迄今为止对接受性韵律进行的最大规模的感知实验，提供了基础 一个新的研究框架用于研究ASD和ASD中潜在的接受性韵律的核心机制 这些缺陷的原因阻碍了他们的语言和语用交流。超越概念扩展 理解--关于青少年接受性韵律适应性和可塑性的新认识 ASD可以为新的干预计划的发展提供信息。网络传递的实验将会服务于 作为我们实验室和其他地方未来研究的原型，促进对不同人群的有效测试 在全国各地。这一范例可以进一步发展，以促进有效的远程医疗诊断和 满足ASD儿童和成人知觉和认知需求的在线干预措施。