Processing of prosodic cues of uncertainty in autistic and non-autistic adults: a study based on articulatory speech synthesis.

ABSTRACT:

Introduction

We investigated the prosodic perception of uncertainty cues in adults with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) compared to neurotypical adults (NTC).

Method

We used articulatory synthetic speech to express uncertainty in a human-machine scenario by varying the three acoustic cues pause, intonation, and hesitation. Twenty-eight adults with ASD and 28 NTC adults rated each answer for uncertainty, naturalness, and comprehensibility.

Results

Both groups reliably perceived different levels of uncertainty. Stimuli were rated as less uncertain by the ASD group, but not significantly. Only when we pooled the recipients' ratings for all three cues, did we find a significant group difference. In terms of reaction time, we observed longer reaction ti

SUBMITTER: Bellinghausen C 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC11513626 | biostudies-literature | 2024

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature