Investigation of the role of timing processes in Autism

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中是必不可少的。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多长时间才能看到那个绿色的人出现，我们可以将我们的按下动作与看到那个人出现联系起来。时间和时间感知问题被认为是自闭症的关键特征。这些可能会导致自闭症的一些症状，比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，有很多时间行为是已知的。在基本层面上，我们可以用不同的感官来检验人们对时间的敏感程度；视觉，听觉，触觉。在中级水平上，我们可以问人们对持续时间的感知程度，也就是一个事件持续多长时间，或者他们需要等待多长时间。最后，我们可以考察人们是如何思考和推理时间的；那就是知道你在时间里所处的位置，了解过去并计划未来。目前，人们对自闭症患者在不同时间的表现知之甚少。很少有研究检查过感官的基本时间缺陷。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，而且很难相互比较，因为他们使用了不同的年龄组或任务。对持续时间的感知（一个事件持续多长时间）的研究表明，自闭症患者之间存在差异，但尚不清楚计时系统中的哪些过程受到了影响。相比之下，有一些高质量的研究考察了更高层次的时间加工，表明计划（了解你在小时/天/周/月/年的位置，并计划未来的事件）和历时思维（了解世界上的物体和事件如何随时间变化，以及以什么速度变化）方面的困难。然而，尚不清楚这些与更基本的计时过程有何关系。因此，我们将要求同一组患有自闭症的成年人和神经正常的对照组进行广泛的计时任务，从基本的计时任务（视觉、听觉、触觉）到更高阶的时间、变化和方向思考。我们将能够发现哪些（如果有的话）自闭症患者的计时能力受到了影响。我们还将能够发现这些计时能力是否与自闭症症状有关，比如感官过度刺激的困难。我们还可以发现不同的计时能力是否相互关联，例如，如果你很难判断声音的长度，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形式。这将包括对自闭症儿童的父母进行问卷调查。我们的项目将有助于确定时间和时间感知是否以及如何在自闭症中受到影响，以及这些与日常症状的关系。这不仅会让我们更好地了解自闭症的基本困难，还会为干预提供途径。例如，老师和家长可以专注于训练自闭症儿童，让他们更好地理解随时间的变化。此外，通过深入探索在典型人群中不同的计时能力是如何相互关联的，我们的发现将告诉我们对我们如何处理和概念化时间的一般理解。

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.