Strong Relationship Between Rapid Auditory Processing and Affective Prosody Recognition Among Adults with High Autistic Traits.

This study investigated whether individuals with high autistic traits rely on psychoacoustic abilities in affective prosody recognition (APR). In 94 college students, Autism Spectrum Quotient (AQ) and psychoacoustic abilities were measured. Results indicated that higher AQ, higher rapid auditory processing (RAP), and maleness were associated with a lower APR accuracy for low-intensity prosodies.

Multimodal Evidence of Atypical Processing of Eye Gaze and Facial Emotion in Children With Autistic Traits.

According to the shared signal hypothesis (SSH) the impact of facial expressions on emotion processing partially depends on whether the gaze is directed toward or away from the observer. In autism spectrum disorder (ASD) several aspects of face processing have been found to be atypical, including attention to eye gaze and the identification of emotional expressions. However, there is little research on how gaze direction affects emotional expression processing in typically developing (TD) individuals and in those with ASD.

Sex differences in behavioral and brain responses to incongruity in emotional speech controlling for autistic traits.

Accurate interpretation of speech requires the integration of verbal and nonverbal signals. This study investigated sex differences in behavior and neural activities associated with the integration of semantic content and emotional speech prosody, while the level of autistic traits was controlled for. Adults listened to Cantonese words spoken with happy and sad prosody, and made judgments on semantic valence while event-related potentials (ERP) were recorded.