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.

项目概要/摘要 该项目将调查一个对推进自闭症谱系障碍语言研究具有重要意义的主题： 驾驭说话者之间语音韵律的变化（例如节奏、语调、语气）虽然很重要。 研究自闭症谱系障碍接受性韵律的研究已得到认可数十年，但文献仍然相对较少 接受性韵律的一个基本方面迄今为止还没有得到明确的结论。 被忽视的是，人类言语的可变性取决于他们的年龄、性别和其他生理和特征。 由于文化因素，说话者在如何使用韵律来表达意思方面可能存在很大差异。 因此，韵律需要具有适应性，以弥补这些差异。 对自闭症谱系障碍患者的影响，他们的感知在当地是高度准确的，而且不太准确 如果他们的接受韵律不恰当，就会受到自上而下的知识和全球统计变化的影响。 根据自然语言中普遍存在的跨说话者变异性进行调制，这将严重限制 这是我们在本提案中首次测试的假设。 这里提出的实验利用了我们团队最近的一项创新，测试了 我们的研究针对神经典型（NT）成年人的大样本的接受性语法和语用韵律。 表明，当接触到一个韵律创作与其他人略有不同的小说谈话者时 考虑到输入的一般统计数据，通常预期什么，成年听众会强有力地重新校准如何 仅 10 分钟后，他们就会对说话者的意思进行分类（例如，这是一个陈述还是一个问题？） 在此创新的基础上，我们将研究类似的感知、分类和适应能力。 患有自闭症谱系障碍 (ASD) 的青少年和匹配的 NT 对照者在接受韵律方面存在细微的声学变化。 考虑个体受试者之间的异质性，并检查可能的 ASD 亚组（例如， 并且没有语言障碍），我们将通过实验室在当地获得相同的测量结果 通过利用在此基础上推出的新的网络交付测试范例，在全国范围内进行测试 这将是迄今为止最大的接受性韵律感知实验，提供了基础。 一种新颖的研究框架，用于研究自闭症谱系障碍（ASD）接受性韵律的核心机制 除了扩展概念之外，缺陷的原因还阻碍了他们的语言和语用交流。 理解，关于青少年接受韵律的适应性和可塑性的新知识 ASD 可以为新型干预项目的开发提供信息。 作为我们实验室及其他地方未来研究的原型，促进对不同人群的有效测试 可以在全国范围内进一步发展这种模式，以促进有效的远程医疗诊断和治疗。 满足自闭症谱系障碍儿童和成人的感知和认知需求的在线干预措施。