HOME HELP FEEDBACK SUBSCRIPTIONS ARCHIVE SEARCH TABLE OF CONTENTS		QUICK SEARCH:   [advanced] Author: Keyword(s): Year:  Vol:  Page:

This Article Full Text Full Text (PDF) Alert me when this article is cited Alert me if a correction is posted Services Similar articles in this journal Similar articles in PubMed Alert me to new issues of the journal Download to citation manager Citing Articles Citing Articles via HighWire Citing Articles via Google Scholar Google Scholar Articles by Bonnel, A. Articles by Bonnel, A.-M. Search for Related Content PubMed PubMed Citation Articles by Bonnel, A. Articles by Bonnel, A.-M.

Enhanced Pitch Sensitivity in Individuals with Autism: A Signal Detection Analysis

University of Montréal
Rivière-des-Prairies Hospital

Isabelle Peretz

University of Montréal

Manon Trudel

University of Montréal
Rivière-des-Prairies Hospital

Erick Gallun and Anne-Marie Bonnel

University of California

Past research has shown a superiority of participants with high-functioning autism over comparison groups in memorizing picture–pitch associations and in detecting pitch changes in melodies. A subset of individuals with autism, known as "musical savants," is also known to possess absolute pitch. This superiority might be due to an abnormally high sensitivity to fine-grained pitch differences in sounds. To test this hypothesis, psychoacoustic tasks were devised so as to use a signal detection methodology. Participants were all musically untrained and were divided into a group of 12 high-functioning individuals with autism and a group of 12 normally developing individuals. Their task was to judge the pitch of pure tones in a "same–different" discrimination task and in a "high–low" categorization task. In both tasks, the obtained psychometric functions revealed higher pitch sensitivity for subjects with autism, with a more pronounced advantage over control participants in the categorization task. These findings confirm that pitch processing is enhanced in "high-functioning" autism. Superior performance in pitch discrimination and categorization extends previous findings of enhanced visual performance to the auditory domain. Thus, and as predicted by the enhanced perceptual functioning model for peaks of ability in autism (Mottron & Burack, 2001), autistic individuals outperform typically developing population in a variety of low-level perceptual tasks.

Key Words: Auditory perception • pitch • auditory hypersensitivity • signal detection theory • pitch discrimination • pitch categorization • peaks of ability • Savant syndrome • high-functioning autism

This article has been cited by other articles:

				M. Gomot, M. K. Belmonte, E. T. Bullmore, F. A. Bernard, and S. Baron-Cohen Brain hyper-reactivity to auditory novel targets in children with high-functioning autism Brain, September 1, 2008; 131(9): 2479 - 2488. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]

				M.-J. Caron, L. Mottron, C. Berthiaume, and M. Dawson Cognitive mechanisms, specificity and neural underpinnings of visuospatial peaks in autism Brain, July 1, 2006; 129(7): 1789 - 1802. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]

				A. Bertone, L. Mottron, P. Jelenic, and J. Faubert Enhanced and diminished visuo-spatial information processing in autism depends on stimulus complexity Brain, October 1, 2005; 128(10): 2430 - 2441. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]

				J. M. Foxton, M. E. Stewart, L. Barnard, J. Rodgers, A. H. Young, G. O'Brien, and T. D. Griffiths Absence of auditory 'global interference' in autism Brain, December 1, 2003; 126(12): 2703 - 2709. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]