Investigation of the role of timing processes in Autism

时间过程在自闭症中的作用的调查

• 批准号: ES/P007732/1
• 负责人: Luke Jones
• 金额: $ 50.29万
• 依托单位: University of Manchester
• 依托单位国家: 英国
• 项目类别: Research Grant
• 财政年份: 2017
• 资助国家: 英国
• 起止时间: 2017 至 无数据
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=ES%2FP007732%2F1
• 关键词: Investigation; role; timing; processes; Autism

Our sense of time and duration are essential in interacting with, and relating to, the world around us. For example, when we press a button at a pedestrian crossing we know about how long we will have to wait for the green man to appear and we can link our pressing action to seeing the man appear. Problems with timing and time perception have been suggested as key characteristics of autism. These could contribute to some of the symptoms of autism, such as difficulties coordinating hand movements or coping with too much sensory stimulation. There are, however, a very wide range of timing behaviours that are known about in psychology. At a basic level, we can examine how sensitive people are to time using the different senses; vision, hearing, touch. At an intermediate level, we can ask how well people can perceive duration, that is how long an event lasts for or how long they will have to wait. Finally, we can examine how people think and reason about time; that is knowing where you are in time, understanding the past and planning for the future. At the moment, how people with autism perform on different types of timing is poorly understood.Very few studies have examined basic timing deficits in the senses. Some studies suggest that people with autism may find it difficult to judge which of two events occurred first, but the findings are sometimes contradictory, and difficult to compare to each other as they use different age groups or tasks. Studies examining the perception of duration (how long an event lasts for) suggest differences in people with autism, but it is unclear which processes in the timing system are affected. In contrast there are good quality studies examining higher-level temporal processing indicating difficulties in planning (understanding where you are in the hour/day/week/month/year and planning for events in the future) and diachronic thinking (understanding how object and events in the world change with time and at what rate). It is, however, not know how these relate to the more basic timing processes.Therefore, we will ask the same group of adults with autism and neurotypical controls to carry out a wide range of timing tasks, from basic timing tasks (vision, hearing, touch), up to higher order thinking about time, change and orientation in time. We will be able to find out which (if any) timing abilities are affected in people with autism. We will also be able to find out whether these timing abilities relate to symptoms of autism, such as difficulties with overstimulation of the senses. We will also be able to find out if different timing abilities relate to one another, for example, if you have difficulty judging the length of a sound, does this relate to problems with planning? Lastly we will investigate just how wide-spread problems with timing are in the autistic population and what form these problems take. This will involve a questionnaire survey of parents of children with autism.Our project will help determine whether and how timing and time perception are affected in autism, and how these relate to everyday symptoms. This will not only lead to a better understanding of fundamental difficulties in autism, but also suggest avenues for intervention. For example, teachers and parents could focus on training children with autism to better understand changes over time. Furthermore, by exploring in depth how the different timing abilities relate to one another in the typical population, our findings will inform our general understanding of how we process and conceptualise time.

我们的时间感和持续时间感在与我们周围的世界互动和联系时至关重要。例如，当我们在人行横道上按下按钮时，我们知道我们需要等待绿色人出现多长时间，我们可以将我们的按下动作与看到该人出现联系起来。时间和时间感知的问题被认为是自闭症的主要特征。这些可能会导致自闭症的一些症状，例如难以协调手部运动或应对过多的感官刺激。然而，在心理学中，有一系列非常广泛的时间行为。在基本层面上，我们可以使用不同的感官来检查人们对时间的敏感度;视觉，听觉，触觉。在中间层次上，我们可以问人们对持续时间的感知有多好，也就是说，一个事件持续了多长时间，或者他们必须等待多长时间。最后，我们可以检查人们如何思考和推理时间;也就是知道你在时间的哪里，了解过去并计划未来。目前，人们对自闭症患者在不同类型的时间上的表现知之甚少，很少有研究考察他们在感官上的基本时间缺陷。一些研究表明，自闭症患者可能很难判断两个事件中哪一个先发生，但研究结果有时是矛盾的，并且很难相互比较，因为他们使用不同的年龄组或任务。对持续时间（一个事件持续多久）的感知的研究表明自闭症患者存在差异，但尚不清楚计时系统中的哪些过程受到影响。相比之下，有一些高质量的研究检查了更高级别的时间处理，表明规划（了解您在小时/天/周/月/年中所处的位置并规划未来的事件）和历时思维（了解对象和事件如何）的困难世界随着时间的推移以及以何种速度变化）。然而，我们不知道这些与更基本的时间过程有什么关系，因此，我们将要求同一组自闭症成年人和神经正常对照组进行广泛的时间任务，从基本的时间任务（视觉，听觉，触觉）到关于时间，时间变化和方向的高阶思维。我们将能够发现自闭症患者的时间能力（如果有的话）受到影响。我们还将能够发现这些计时能力是否与自闭症的症状有关，例如感觉过度刺激的困难。我们还将能够发现不同的计时能力是否相互关联，例如，如果你难以判断声音的长度，这是否与计划问题有关？最后，我们将调查自闭症人群中时间问题的普遍程度以及这些问题的表现形式。这将涉及对自闭症儿童父母的问卷调查。我们的项目将有助于确定自闭症是否以及如何影响时间和时间感知，以及这些与日常症状的关系。这不仅将导致更好地理解自闭症的基本困难，而且还提出了干预的途径。例如，教师和家长可以专注于培训自闭症儿童，以更好地理解随着时间的推移而发生的变化。此外，通过深入探索不同的时间能力如何在典型人群中相互关联，我们的研究结果将告知我们对我们如何处理和概念化时间的一般理解。

项目成果

Time perception in autistic adults: Interval and event timing judgements do not differ from non-autistics

自闭症成人的时间感知：间隔和事件时间判断与非自闭症患者没有差异

• DOI: 10.31234/osf.io/zg4sj
• 发表时间: 2021
• 作者: Poole D

When 2 become 1: Autistic simultaneity judgements about asynchronous audiovisual speech

• DOI: 10.1177/17470218231197518
• 发表时间: 2023-09-20
• 期刊: QUARTERLY JOURNAL OF EXPERIMENTAL PSYCHOLOGY
• 影响因子: 1.7
• 作者: Poole，Daniel;Gowen，Emma;Jones，Luke A.
• 通讯作者: Jones，Luke A.

'No idea of time': Parents report differences in autistic children's behaviour relating to time in a mixed-methods study.

• DOI: 10.1177/13623613211010014
• 发表时间: 2021-08
• 期刊: Autism : the international journal of research and practice
• 作者: Poole D;Gowen E;Poliakoff E;Jones LA
• 通讯作者: Jones LA