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Sounds Pleasantness Ratings in Autism: Interaction between Social Information and Acoustical Noise Level

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Title: Sounds Pleasantness Ratings in Autism: Interaction between Social Information and Acoustical Noise Level
Language: English
Authors: Lisa Michel (ORCID 0000-0002-9610-3789), Camille Ricou, Frédérique Bonnet-Brilhault, Emannuelle Houy-Durand, Marianne Latinus
Source: Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders. 2024 54(6):2148-2157.
Availability: Springer. Available from: Springer Nature. One New York Plaza, Suite 4600, New York, NY 10004. Tel: 800-777-4643; Tel: 212-460-1500; Fax: 212-460-1700; e-mail: customerservice@springernature.com; Web site: https://link.springer.com/
Peer Reviewed: Y
Page Count: 10
Publication Date: 2024
Document Type: Journal Articles
Reports - Research
Descriptors: Autism Spectrum Disorders, Acoustics, Auditory Stimuli, Emotional Response, Cognitive Processes, Music, Interests, Adults, Control Groups, Comparative Analysis, Social Cognition
DOI: 10.1007/s10803-023-05989-6
ISSN: 0162-3257
1573-3432
Abstract: A lack of response to voices, and a great interest for music are part of the behavioral expressions, commonly (self-)reported in Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). These atypical interests for vocal and musical sounds could be attributable to different levels of acoustical noise, quantified in the harmonic-to-noise ratio (HNR). No previous study has investigated explicit auditory pleasantness in ASD comparing vocal and non-vocal sounds, in relation to acoustic noise level. The aim of this study is to objectively evaluate auditory pleasantness. 16 adults on the autism spectrum and 16 neuro-typical (NT) matched adults rated the likeability of vocal and non-vocal sounds, with varying harmonic-to-noise ratio levels. A group by category interaction in pleasantness judgements revealed that participants on the autism spectrum judged vocal sounds as less pleasant than non-vocal sounds; an effect not found for NT participants. A category by HNR level interaction revealed that participants of both groups rated sounds with a high HNR as more pleasant for non-vocal sounds. A significant group by HNR interaction revealed that people on the autism spectrum tended to judge as less pleasant sounds with high HNR and more pleasant those with low HNR than NT participants. Acoustical noise level of sounds alone does not appear to explain atypical interest for voices and greater interest in music in ASD.
Abstractor: As Provided
Entry Date: 2024
Accession Number: EJ1426512
Database: ERIC
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  Value: <anid>AN0177598728;aut01jun.24;2024Jun04.06:54;v2.2.500</anid> <title id="AN0177598728-1">Sounds Pleasantness Ratings in Autism: Interaction Between Social Information and Acoustical Noise Level </title> <p>A lack of response to voices, and a great interest for music are part of the behavioral expressions, commonly (self-)reported in Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). These atypical interests for vocal and musical sounds could be attributable to different levels of acoustical noise, quantified in the harmonic-to-noise ratio (HNR). No previous study has investigated explicit auditory pleasantness in ASD comparing vocal and non-vocal sounds, in relation to acoustic noise level. The aim of this study is to objectively evaluate auditory pleasantness. 16 adults on the autism spectrum and 16 neuro-typical (NT) matched adults rated the likeability of vocal and non-vocal sounds, with varying harmonic-to-noise ratio levels. A group by category interaction in pleasantness judgements revealed that participants on the autism spectrum judged vocal sounds as less pleasant than non-vocal sounds; an effect not found for NT participants. A category by HNR level interaction revealed that participants of both groups rated sounds with a high HNR as more pleasant for non-vocal sounds. A significant group by HNR interaction revealed that people on the autism spectrum tended to judge as less pleasant sounds with high HNR and more pleasant those with low HNR than NT participants. Acoustical noise level of sounds alone does not appear to explain atypical interest for voices and greater interest in music in ASD.</p> <p>Keywords: ASD; Voice perception; Pleasantness; Harmonic-to-noise ratio; (Non-)vocal sounds</p> <p>The original article is revised to update the author affiliation number and 2nd affiliation.</p> <p>Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) is a neurodevelopmental disorder, characterized by deficits in communication and social interaction and specific, repetitive patterns of behavior, interests or activities (American Psychiatric Association, [<reflink idref="bib1" id="ref1">1</reflink>]). In line with these social deficits, the clinical observations of individuals on the autism spectrum often report atypical behaviors in response to sounds, and voices in particular, such as a lack of interest and/or response to voices, echolalia and hypo or hyper sensitivity to auditory stimuli (American Psychiatric Association, [<reflink idref="bib1" id="ref2">1</reflink>]; Kanner, [<reflink idref="bib25" id="ref3">25</reflink>]). Accordingly, it was reported that autistic people, in particular those without intellectual disability, fail to extract vocal indices about the mental state of others (Rutherford et al., [<reflink idref="bib53" id="ref4">53</reflink>]). Note that, following recommendations by Bottema-Beutel et al. ([<reflink idref="bib12" id="ref5">12</reflink>]), we choose to use people "on the autism spectrum", or "autistic people" to refer to autistic individuals.</p> <p>The human voice is an important tool for social interaction, because it holds information about a speaker's gender, identity (Belin et al., [<reflink idref="bib4" id="ref6">4</reflink>]) and emotional state (Belin et al., [<reflink idref="bib5" id="ref7">5</reflink>]).</p> <p>The Temporal Voices Areas (TVA), a cerebral network specialized in human voice processing, are characterized by a preferential response to voices than other non-vocal sounds (Belin et al., [<reflink idref="bib6" id="ref8">6</reflink>]). This preferential activation of the TVA is thought to be the origin of the positive wave specific to voices recorded with electroencephalography (EEG) over fronto-temporal areas: the fronto-temporal positivity to voices (FTPV; Capilla et al., [<reflink idref="bib14" id="ref9">14</reflink>]; Charest et al., [<reflink idref="bib15" id="ref10">15</reflink>]; Rogier et al., [<reflink idref="bib50" id="ref11">50</reflink>]) This preferential response to voices has not been clearly described in autistic people with studies reporting contradictory results. No TVA was found in adults (Gervais et al., [<reflink idref="bib21" id="ref12">21</reflink>]) on the autism spectrum due to a lack of activation in response to vocal sounds. Yet, normal TVA activation was found in adults with autism and no Intellectual Disability (ID) (Schelinski et al., [<reflink idref="bib55" id="ref13">55</reflink>]). In an EEG study, autistic children did not show a preferential response to vocal sounds, but this mainly reflected an atypical processing of non-vocal sounds (Bidet-Caulet et al., [<reflink idref="bib8" id="ref14">8</reflink>]). Cortical activations in response to speech sounds were also reported to be lower in autistic children, especially in the inferior frontal gyrus (Lai et al., [<reflink idref="bib33" id="ref15">33</reflink>]; Sharda et al., [<reflink idref="bib56" id="ref16">56</reflink>]) and in the left temporal cortex (Eyler et al., [<reflink idref="bib17" id="ref17">17</reflink>]). It appears that voice processing, and in particular spoken voice processing may be different in autism, although the lack of consensus could reflect the high heterogeneity observed in autism spectrum, at both individual and population level (Latinus et al., [<reflink idref="bib34" id="ref18">34</reflink>]).</p> <p>Like language, music carries emotions and is an integral part of everyday life. Music differs mainly from language by its lack of semantic content and its acoustical structure (Leaver & Rauschecker, [<reflink idref="bib35" id="ref19">35</reflink>]). The existence of brain regions specialized in music processing remains an open question, with some studies reporting overlap of regions involved in music and voices (Peretz et al., [<reflink idref="bib47" id="ref20">47</reflink>]) and others looking at impaired music processing suggesting it may be relatively independent from language processing (Peretz, [<reflink idref="bib46" id="ref21">46</reflink>]).</p> <p>Since the first behavioral descriptions of autism, music has a special status. A keen interest in music, associated with equivalent or superior skills in music with respect to neurotypical individuals has often been reported (Bonnel et al., [<reflink idref="bib10" id="ref22">10</reflink>]; Heaton et al., [<reflink idref="bib24" id="ref23">24</reflink>]; Mottron et al., [<reflink idref="bib42" id="ref24">42</reflink>]; Wang et al., [<reflink idref="bib61" id="ref25">61</reflink>]). In a behavioral study, Boso et al. ([<reflink idref="bib11" id="ref26">11</reflink>]) have shown that autistic people share the same musical preferences as neurotypical individuals. In addition, cortical activation in response to music seem to be preserved in ASD (Gebauer et al., [<reflink idref="bib20" id="ref27">20</reflink>]).</p> <p>Music differs from environmental sounds, and vocal sounds by its acoustical structure. In particular, harmonics-to-noise ratio (HNR) in musical sounds is on average higher than that of human and animal vocalizations including songbirds and environmental sounds (Leaver & Rauschecker, [<reflink idref="bib35" id="ref28">35</reflink>]).</p> <p>The HNR is an important signal in auditory perception. Because the HNR of human and animal vocalizations is higher than other natural sounds, it seems to be an important acoustical attribute for vocal perception (Lewis et al., [<reflink idref="bib38" id="ref29">38</reflink>], [<reflink idref="bib39" id="ref30">39</reflink>]). It has been shown that perceived vocal attractiveness, which is positively correlated with HNR (Bruckert et al., [<reflink idref="bib13" id="ref31">13</reflink>]), modulates the cortical activity, particularly in bilateral inferior prefrontal regions (Bestelmeyer et al., [<reflink idref="bib7" id="ref32">7</reflink>]). In addition, a specific HNR-sensitive brain regions has been highlighted in the human auditory cortex (Leaver & Rauschecker, [<reflink idref="bib35" id="ref33">35</reflink>]; Lewis et al., [<reflink idref="bib39" id="ref34">39</reflink>]). Therefore, HNR appears important in voice perception and in sound pleasantness.</p> <p>Within the vocal category, sung voices have a special status, compared with spoken voices: they are closer to music, present less variability in fundamental frequency, and have a more harmonic acoustical structure, as reflected by higher HNR (Sharda et al., [<reflink idref="bib56" id="ref35">56</reflink>]; Stegemöller et al., [<reflink idref="bib58" id="ref36">58</reflink>]). Specific brain responses to sung voices, located in middle and anterior STG, have been identified in NT people in an functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) study (Norman-Haignere et al., [<reflink idref="bib43" id="ref37">43</reflink>]). Activation in response to sung voices is reported to be similar (Sharda et al., [<reflink idref="bib56" id="ref38">56</reflink>]) or increased (Lai et al., [<reflink idref="bib33" id="ref39">33</reflink>]) in autism. Whispered voices can be considered as the other bound of the vocal category; they are characterized by low HNR, due to the lack of vocal folds vibration.</p> <p>HNR is an acoustic marker important for voice perception, also associated with voice attractiveness, and which varies between sung voices, music and spoken voices. HNR is a measured of the noise within the stimulus itself, and as such can be considered as an exogenous noise. Endogenous neural noise (Davis & Plaisted-Grant, [<reflink idref="bib16" id="ref40">16</reflink>]) has been highlighted as key factor in ASD: some authors suggest that an enhanced endogenous neural noise level in ASD sensory system (Simmons et al., [<reflink idref="bib57" id="ref41">57</reflink>]) may induce difficulties in sensory discrimination (Tang et al., [<reflink idref="bib59" id="ref42">59</reflink>]) and prioritization of afferent signals. On the contrary, others suggest that a reduced level of endogenous brain noise would enlighten an enhanced sensory detection and discrimination in ASD (Davis & Plaisted-Grant, [<reflink idref="bib16" id="ref43">16</reflink>]). Concerning exogeneous noise, there is few relevant literatures in the auditory modality; yet, in visual perception study, it is well admitted that autistic persons process better avatars than real faces (Pino et al., [<reflink idref="bib48" id="ref44">48</reflink>]), interestingly avatars are in general less noisy than real faces. This raises question on the role of exogeneous noise, i.e., here HNR, in the perception of sounds by people on the autism spectrum. To our knowledge, no studies have investigated auditory pleasantness in adults on the autism spectrum; the literature focuses on the investigation of auditory preferences in children. Behavioral studies have highlighted a preference for Child Directed Speech (CDS) over Adult Directed Speech (Fernald, [<reflink idref="bib18" id="ref45">18</reflink>]) in NT children, even more pronounced for their mother's speech (Klin, [<reflink idref="bib29" id="ref46">29</reflink>], [<reflink idref="bib30" id="ref47">30</reflink>]), but no differences between sung and spoken voices (Blackstock, [<reflink idref="bib9" id="ref48">9</reflink>]). On the contrary, children on the autism spectrum do not prefer CDS (Paul et al., [<reflink idref="bib45" id="ref49">45</reflink>]), and prefer non-vocal stimuli (Kuhl et al., [<reflink idref="bib31" id="ref50">31</reflink>]) or musical sounds (Blackstock, [<reflink idref="bib9" id="ref51">9</reflink>]). Using an active task, it was shown that autistic children do not prefer their own mother's speech, but prefer loud monotonous sound (hubbub), contrary to NT children (Klin, [<reflink idref="bib29" id="ref52">29</reflink>], [<reflink idref="bib30" id="ref53">30</reflink>]). However, as observed in NT children, autistic children show a preference for vocal prosodic sounds, compared to vocal monotonous sounds and to mechanical prosodic and monotonous sounds (Gilbertson et al., [<reflink idref="bib22" id="ref54">22</reflink>]). Finally, while NT children do not show preference between sung and spoken voices, autistic children seem to prefer sung voices (Blackstock, [<reflink idref="bib9" id="ref55">9</reflink>]).</p> <p>Thus, to our knowledge, no studies exist on direct auditory pleasantness assessment who compare vocal and non-vocal stimuli preferences, with varying level of HNR.</p> <p>The primary aim of this study was to evaluate subjective auditory preferences in ASD. Our general hypothesis was that pleasantness judgements of people on the autism spectrum will differ from those of NT people according to the social nature and the exogenous noise, e.g., the HNR of the sounds. We expected that people on the autism spectrum would rate non-vocal sounds as more pleasant than voices, contrarily to neuro-typical people (NT) who would give higher pleasantness judgments to vocal sounds. We expected HNR to influence more pleasantness judgements of both vocal and non-vocal sounds in autistic people than in NT people. To probe this, we assessed auditory pleasantness using active behavioral ratings.</p> <hd id="AN0177598728-2">Methods</hd> <p></p> <hd id="AN0177598728-3">Participants</hd> <p>16 adults on the autism spectrum (6 women; mean age: 27.4 years old (± 6.7)) recruited from the Centre de Ressources Autisme, Centre Val de Loire and the child psychiatry department of Tours University Hospital participated in this study. The diagnosis of ASD was made by a pluridisciplinary team of expert clinicians according to DSM-IV-TR/5 and the Autism Diagnosis Interview-Revised (ADI-R) and the Autism Diagnostic Observation Scale-second edition (ADOS-2). 16 neuro-typical adults (6 women; mean age: 27.8 years old (± 6.3)) without personal history of neurological or psychiatric disorders or early learning disabilities, were matched in gender and age with people on the autism spectrum. The cognitive abilities of individuals were assessed using the Wechsler Intelligence Scales adapted to the age of individuals. All participants had normal hearing (direct audiometric subjective test for NT participants; clinical reports from the medical team for autistic participants). All participants were native speaker of French. Participants characteristics are summarized in Table 1.</p> <p>Table 1 Participants characteristics</p> <p> <ephtml> <table frame="hsides" rules="groups"><thead><tr><th align="left" rowspan="2" /><th align="left" colspan="2"><p>ASD</p></th><th align="left" colspan="2"><p>NT</p></th></tr><tr><th align="left"><p>F</p></th><th align="left"><p>M</p></th><th align="left"><p>F</p></th><th align="left"><p>M</p></th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td align="left"><p>Age (months)</p><p>μ (<bold>± </bold>σ)</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>n = 6</p><p>26.93 (± 5.71)</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>n = 10</p><p>23.34 (± 9.57)</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>n = 6</p><p>26.69 (± 5.19)</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>n = 10</p><p>28.54 (± 7.11)</p></td></tr><tr><td align="left"><p>NVDQ</p><p>μ (<bold>± </bold>σ)</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>n = 4</p><p>104.5 (± 17.17)</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>n = 10</p><p>101.8 (± 17.29)</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>n = 4</p><p>121.88 (± 17.61)</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>n = 7</p><p>124.43 (± 6.05)</p></td></tr><tr><td align="left"><p>VDQ</p><p>μ (<bold>± </bold>σ)</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>n = 4</p><p>107.5 (<bold>± </bold>23.69)</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>n = 10</p><p>109.6 (<bold>± </bold>22.45)</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>n = 4</p><p>102.5 (± 14.73)</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>n = 7</p><p>108.57 (± 14.64)</p></td></tr><tr><td align="left"><p>AQ</p><p>μ (<bold>± </bold>σ)</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>n = 4</p><p>40 (± 2.83)</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>n = 6</p><p>30.3 (± 6.83)</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>n = 4</p><p>15.29 (± 5.96)</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>n = 7</p><p>14.57 (± 6.95)</p></td></tr><tr><td align="left"><p>EQ</p><p>μ (<bold>± </bold>σ)</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>n = 4</p><p>16.5 (± 7.05)</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>n = 8</p><p>23.88 (± 8.22)</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>n = 4</p><p>44.29 (± 8.88)</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>n = 7</p><p>39.43 (± 4.93)</p></td></tr><tr><td align="left"><p>ADOS–RRB</p><p>μ (<bold>± </bold>σ)</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>n = 4</p><p>3.25 (± 1.71)</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>n = 8</p><p>1.63 (± 1.30)</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>–</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>–</p></td></tr><tr><td align="left"><p>ADOS–SI</p><p>μ (<bold>± </bold>σ)</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>n = 4</p><p>9 (± 5.1)</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>n = 8</p><p>8.38 (± 5.04)</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>–</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>–</p></td></tr><tr><td align="left"><p>CARS</p><p>μ (<bold>± </bold>σ)</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>n = 5</p><p>26.25 (± 2.5)</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>n = 9</p><p>26.43 (± 4.39)</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>–</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>–</p></td></tr></tbody></table> </ephtml> </p> <p> <emph>NVDQ</emph> non-verbal development quotient, <emph>VDQ</emph> verbal development quotient, <emph>AQ</emph> autism quotient, <emph>EQ</emph> empathy quotient, <emph>ADOS SI</emph> autism diagnostic observation schedule–social interactions, <emph>ADOS RRB</emph> autism diagnostic observation schedule–restrictive and repetitive behaviors, <emph>CARS</emph> childhood autism rating scale Note that the ADOS-SI scores is the mean of SI score for participants who were evaluated with ADOS2 and the sum of communication and SI factors for those evaluated with ADOS1. Due to missing data, the identity and number of participants included in each of these calculations are not identical</p> <hd id="AN0177598728-4">Stimuli</hd> <p>The experimental material was composed of vocal and non-vocal sounds, with three conditions of noise level per category: sung, spoken and whispered voices, and musical, animal and environmental sounds (Fig. 1). All sounds were natural sound recordings. The 3 HNR levels (low/medium/high) were quite distinct (F (<reflink idref="bib2" id="ref56">2</reflink>, 84) = 126.69, p < 0.001), but equivalent across the 2 categories (vocal/non-vocal) (F(<reflink idref="bib1" id="ref57">1</reflink>, 84) = 1.97, p = 0.02). There was an interaction between HNR level and category (F(<reflink idref="bib2" id="ref58">2</reflink>, 84) = 9.36, p = < 0.001), showing a higher HNR for music than for sung voices and a smaller HNR for environmental sounds than whispered voices.</p> <p>Graph: Fig. 1 Spectrograms of each six sounds conditions. A block is vocal sounds, B block is non-vocal sounds. Mean HNR values are means of all 15 sounds per condition. Images are spectrograms of one example of sound of each condition</p> <p>The 90 final stimuli were selected from a sample of 131 original sounds, previously evaluated in a pilot version of the study ran on 13 different NT adults (10 women; mean age: 22 years old (± 1.96)). In order to constitute six homogeneous sound categories, the final stimuli were selected to maximize intra-condition homogeneity, measured with the Cronbach's alpha on sound pleasantness judgements of participants (Nunnally & Bernstein, [<reflink idref="bib44" id="ref59">44</reflink>]). At the end, there were 15 sounds per condition with inter-stimuli intra-condition reproducibility above 0.85 (Table 2).</p> <p>Table 2 Cronbach's alpha values for each sound categroy</p> <p> <ephtml> <table frame="hsides" rules="groups"><thead><tr><th align="left" colspan="2"><p>Cronbach's alpha values per conditions n = 90</p></th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td align="left"><p>Sung sounds</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>0.926</p></td></tr><tr><td align="left"><p>Spoken sounds</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>0.924</p></td></tr><tr><td align="left"><p>Whispered sounds</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>0.981</p></td></tr><tr><td align="left"><p>Musical sounds</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>0.919</p></td></tr><tr><td align="left"><p>Animal sounds</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>0.855</p></td></tr><tr><td align="left"><p>Environmental sounds</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>0.893</p></td></tr></tbody></table> </ephtml> </p> <p>Vocal sounds were speech sounds produced by speakers of both genders, and of different languages (german, english, spanish, galician, french, japanese and swedish) to reduce the influence of semantic understanding on pleasantness judgements. Non-vocal sounds were from different sources such as musical instruments (playing musical notes), animal calls and daily environmental sounds (for example cars, ring tone, door, wind, rain).</p> <p>All sounds were normalized in intensity. The mean duration of all sounds (± σ) was 839 ± 147 ms. In order to minimize clicks, a ramp of 5% of the sounds durations was applied at the end of each sound.</p> <hd id="AN0177598728-5">Experimental Design</hd> <p>The sound pleasantness judgement task was run with the PsychToolbox within the MATLAB environment (release 7.11.0.584). All participants performed the task on a laptop, in a sound-attenuated room; sounds were presented through the laptop loudspeakers at a level comfortable to the participant.</p> <p>Participant listened to a sound (that could be freely replayed with the « play» button) and had to evaluate the pleasantness of the sound using a visual analog scale, ranging from « not pleasant at all» to « very pleasant». The next sound was played 2 s after validation of their choice. They rated pleasantness on the 90 sounds presented in a random order. Task duration varied across participants ranging from 11 to 18 min. For autistic participants with ID the experimenter recorded their response without influencing their judgment and emoticons were presented to facilitate the comprehension of the task.</p> <hd id="AN0177598728-6">Data Analysis</hd> <p>The data analyzed here are the raw numerical data, corresponding to pleasantness ratings of each sound, ranging from 0 «not pleasant at all/ very unpleasant» to 1 «very pleasant». The data were not normalized so as to keep the rating range of the participant as this could be influenced by diagnosis.</p> <p>Statistical analysis and graphics were performed with R (v.4.1.1-R Core Team, [<reflink idref="bib49" id="ref60">49</reflink>]) and R Studio (v. 1.4.1717-RStudio Team, [<reflink idref="bib51" id="ref61">51</reflink>]) using the following packages: plotrix (Lemon, [<reflink idref="bib36" id="ref62">36</reflink>]), ggplot2 (Wickham, [<reflink idref="bib63" id="ref63">63</reflink>]), lsmeans (Lenth, [<reflink idref="bib37" id="ref64">37</reflink>]), lmerTest (Kuznetsova et al., [<reflink idref="bib32" id="ref65">32</reflink>]), lme4 (Bates et al., [<reflink idref="bib3" id="ref66">3</reflink>]), tidyverse (Wickham et al., [<reflink idref="bib64" id="ref67">64</reflink>]), lattice (Sarkar, [<reflink idref="bib54" id="ref68">54</reflink>]), rstatix (Kassambara, [<reflink idref="bib28" id="ref69">28</reflink>]), ggpubr (Kassambara, [<reflink idref="bib27" id="ref70">27</reflink>]), ggcorrplot (Kassambara, [<reflink idref="bib26" id="ref71">26</reflink>]), corrplot (Wei & Simko, [<reflink idref="bib62" id="ref72">62</reflink>]), viridis (Garnier et al., [<reflink idref="bib19" id="ref73">19</reflink>]), hrbrthemes (Rudis, [<reflink idref="bib52" id="ref74">52</reflink>]) and gridExtra (Auguie, [<reflink idref="bib2" id="ref75">2</reflink>]). The figures were created with the following software: R (v.4.1.1), R Studio (v. 1.4.1717) and GIMP (v.2.10.22).</p> <hd id="AN0177598728-7">Correlational Analysis</hd> <p>Intra-group correlations were estimated by correlating individual ratings of participants with one another within each diagnostic group (ASD or NT). Correlation between pleasantness and HNR were performed using the mean pleasantness ratings of each sound per group.</p> <p>Significance of correlations was determined with bootstrap method (<reflink idref="bib10" id="ref76">10</reflink>,000 bootstrap), by creating a theoretical distribution of Spearman's coefficient under the null hypothesis (H0) of a lack of correlation, obtained by sampling with replacement one of the value of a pair (e.g., pleasantness in pleasantness/HNR correlations, one participant in between participants correlations). The correlations' 95% confidence interval (CI95%) was estimated under the alternative hypothesis (H1), through the creation of a theoretical distribution of Spearman's coefficient obtained by sampling the pairs with replacement. Statistical analysis of the difference between correlations was performed by measuring the real difference in Spearman's coefficient, then calculating theoretical distribution of differences under H0, using permutation tests (<reflink idref="bib10" id="ref77">10</reflink>,000 permutations).</p> <hd id="AN0177598728-8">Statistical Analysis</hd> <p>Linear mixed effects models were used to better consider inter-participants and inter-stimuli variability. Initially two models were tested, both had pleasantness ratings as the dependent variable and group, sound category and HNR level and their interactions as fixed effects (group (2 levels: ASD/NT) x category (2 levels: vocal/non-vocal) x HNR (3 levels: low/medium/high)). In the first one (M1), random effects for a particular subject were the deviations in intercept of that subject's pleasantness rating from the population. In the second one (M2), in addition to subject's random effects, random effects for a particular sound were the deviations in intercept of that sound's pleasantness rating from the complete sample of sounds. Comparisons of the two models using an ANOVA ('stats' package-R Core Team, [<reflink idref="bib49" id="ref78">49</reflink>]) revealed that the model with both sounds and subjects as random effects better explained the data (AIC_M1 = − 1139.9; AIC_M2 = − 1342; Chi2 = 204.14; p < 0.001).</p> <p>Model 2 was then optimized using the "step" function ('stats' package-R Core Team, [<reflink idref="bib49" id="ref79">49</reflink>]), revealing that the model that best explained our data was the following one (final model):</p> <p> <ephtml> <math xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML"><mrow><mtext>Ratings</mtext><mspace width="0.166667em" /><mo>∼</mo><mspace width="0.166667em" /><mtext>Group</mtext><mspace width="0.166667em" /><mo>+</mo><mspace width="0.166667em" /><mtext>Category</mtext><mspace width="0.166667em" /><mo>+</mo><mspace width="0.166667em" /><mtext>HNR</mtext><mspace width="0.166667em" /><mo>+</mo><mspace width="0.166667em" /><mfenced close=")" open="("><mrow><mn>1</mn><mspace width="0.166667em" /><mo stretchy="false">|</mo><mspace width="0.166667em" /><mtext>Subjects</mtext></mrow></mfenced><mspace width="0.166667em" /><mo>+</mo><mspace width="0.166667em" /><mfenced close=")" open="("><mrow><mn>1</mn><mspace width="0.166667em" /><mo stretchy="false">|</mo><mspace width="0.166667em" /><mtext>Sounds</mtext></mrow></mfenced><mspace width="0.166667em" /><mo>+</mo><mspace width="0.166667em" /><mtext>Group</mtext><mo>:</mo><mtext>Category</mtext><mspace width="0.166667em" /><mo>+</mo><mspace width="0.166667em" /><mtext>Group</mtext><mo>:</mo><mtext>HNR</mtext><mspace width="0.166667em" /><mo>+</mo><mspace width="0.166667em" /><mtext>Category</mtext><mo>:</mo><mtext>HNR</mtext></mrow></math> </ephtml> . Model optimization resulted in the three-way interaction not being tested.</p> <p>The anova comparing M2 and the final model revealed no significant different between the two models (AIC_M2 = − 1342; AIC_fM = − 1343.4; Chi2 = 2.63; p = 0.2679), therefore we choose the final model as it had a smaller number of parameters estimates (13 vs. 15 in M2) according to the Principle of Parsimony (Vandekerckhove et al., [<reflink idref="bib60" id="ref80">60</reflink>]).</p> <hd id="AN0177598728-9">Results</hd> <p></p> <hd id="AN0177598728-10">Correlations</hd> <p>Intra-group correlations revealed a larger group-variability (T(<reflink idref="bib238" id="ref81">238</reflink>) = − 4.80, p < 0.001), indexed by a lower mean Spearman rho, in the ASD group [mean ρ (± σ) = 0.18 (± 0.30)] than in the NT group [mean ρ (± σ) = 0.30 (± 0.22)]. Sounds pleasantness ratings were more similar across NT participants than across autistic participants (Fig. 2a).</p> <p>Graph: Fig. 2 a Correlation coefficient of each subject with others subjects of their group. Left upper triangle represents correlation between ASD subjects; right lower triangle represents correlation between NT subjects. b Points cloud illustrating pleasantness ratings of ASD and NT group by HNR–triangles represent low HNR level, circles represent medium HNR level and squares represent high HNR level. ASD participants are represented in blue and NT participants are represented in orange. c Point graph illustrating mean pleasantness ratings (± sem) of ASD and NT participants and HNR levels–ASD participants are blue point, NT participants are orange point. Each color point represent the mean ratings for one subject for one HNR condition (15 sounds). Black point represent mean pleasantness ratings of all the 16 participants for one HNR condition and black line represent the error-bar (± sem)</p> <p>Analysis of the correlations between HNR and pleasantness ratings in vocal sounds showed no significant correlation for either group: ASD group [ρ [IC95%] = − 0.08 [− 0.38 0.24]; p = 0.60], NT group [ρ [IC95%] = 0.17 [− 0.12 0.45]; p = 0.27], and no difference between the groups [ρ difference [IC95%] = − 0.25 [− 0.46 − 0.03]; p = 0.10]. For non-vocal sounds, pleasantness ratings was positively correlated with HNR for both the ASD group [ρ [IC95%] = 0.65 [− 0.44 0.22]; p < 0.001] and NT group [ρ [IC95%] = 0.57 [− 0.27 0.32]; p < 0.001], and there was no significant between-group differences [ρ difference [IC95%] = 0.08 [− 0.38 0.09]; p = 0.11]. The higher the HNR is, the more pleasant the sounds are rated. HNR explains 42.12% of the variance of ASD participants for the non-vocal category, and 32.27% of the variance of NT participants (Fig. 2b).</p> <hd id="AN0177598728-11">Linear Mixed Model</hd> <p>The chosen model included group, HNR levels, category (vocal/non-vocal) and category by group, category by HNR and group by HNR interactions as fixed effects, and subjects and sounds as the only intercept random effects. Analysis of the model outputs revealed no effect of group on pleasantness ratings (F (<reflink idref="bib1" id="ref82">1</reflink>, 31.97) = 0.66, p = 0.42), but significant main effects of HNR (F(<reflink idref="bib2" id="ref83">2</reflink>, 89.38) = 25.62, p < 0.001) and category (F(<reflink idref="bib1" id="ref84">1</reflink>, 89.38) = 3.95, p < 0.05) (Fig. 2c).</p> <p>A significant category by HNR interaction was found (F(<reflink idref="bib2" id="ref85">2</reflink>, 89.38) = 14.34, p < 0.001), revealing that HNR level influences differently pleasantness ratings of the two sound categories (vocal and non-vocal): participants rated sounds with a high HNR as more pleasant for non-vocal sounds, while for vocal sounds spoken voices were the most pleasant. Planned pairwise comparisons with adjusted p values (for 9 comparisons) were performed to specify this interaction. Mean pleasantness ratings were lower for non-vocal low HNR (environmental sounds) than for non-vocal medium HNR (animal sounds) (p < 0.001), and for non-vocal high HNR (music) (p < 0.001), which did not differ. Mean pleasantness ratings for non-vocal high HNR (music) were significantly higher than those for vocal high HNR (sung voices) (p < 0.001); the opposite was true for low HNR sounds: ratings were higher in the vocal than in the non-vocal category (p = 0.049). No other planned comparisons were significant.</p> <p>A significant group by category interaction (F(<reflink idref="bib1" id="ref86">1</reflink>, 2758.92) = 13.80, p < 0.001) revealed that while no difference in mean ratings was observed between category in the NT group, participants on the autism spectrum rated vocal sounds as less pleasant than non-vocal sounds (corrected p values for 4 comparisons < 0.05).</p> <p>Finally, a significant group by HNR interaction (F(<reflink idref="bib2" id="ref87">2</reflink>, 2758.92) = 5.01, p < 0.01) highlighted that HNR level influenced differently pleasantness ratings between ASD and NT participants. Pairwise comparisons with adjusted p values (for 9 comparisons) were performed to specify this interaction. ASD mean pleasantness ratings of low HNR stimuli were significantly lower than those of high (p < 0.001), and medium HNR (p < 0.001), which did not differ. In the NT group, mean pleasantness ratings for low HNR were significantly lower than for high (p < 0.001) and medium HNR (p < 0.001), which did not differ. Note that within an HNR level there was no group difference (all p > 0.05); nonetheless, it appears that NT participants tended to rate as more pleasant stimuli with a high HNR relative to ASD participants, while ASD participants rated more pleasant stimuli with low HNR relative to NT participants (Fig. 2c).</p> <hd id="AN0177598728-12">Discussion</hd> <p>We aimed to evaluate auditory pleasantness in autism spectrum disorder. Based on literature reports of a keen interest in, and intact processing of, music (Bonnel et al., [<reflink idref="bib10" id="ref88">10</reflink>]; Heaton et al., [<reflink idref="bib24" id="ref89">24</reflink>]; Mottron et al., [<reflink idref="bib42" id="ref90">42</reflink>]; Wang et al., [<reflink idref="bib61" id="ref91">61</reflink>]), and intact processing of sung voices (Lai et al., [<reflink idref="bib33" id="ref92">33</reflink>]; Sharda et al., [<reflink idref="bib56" id="ref93">56</reflink>]) in autism, we expected HNR to play a crucial role in the perception of pleasantness in ASD. Our main hypothesis was that pleasantness judgements of people on the autism spectrum would differ from NT people according to the social nature (from a human being, e.g., the voice) of the sounds and its acoustical noise level. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first study to empirically assess auditory pleasantness in ASD. Using a pleasantness rating task, we showed that autistic participants judge non-vocal sounds more pleasant than vocal sounds. Both groups of participants were more sensitive to noise level in non-vocal sounds than in vocal sounds. Nonetheless, NT participants tended to consider as more pleasant sounds with a more regular structure than did the participants on the autism spectrum.</p> <p>Correlations between participants' pleasantness judgements were higher within the NT group than within the autistic group, consistent with previous reports highlighting the higher variability of response in people on the autism spectrum in neuroimaging studies (Hahamy et al., [<reflink idref="bib23" id="ref94">23</reflink>]; Latinus et al., [<reflink idref="bib34" id="ref95">34</reflink>]; Milne, [<reflink idref="bib41" id="ref96">41</reflink>]). This shows that even on a relatively simple behavioral task, response of autistic participants differs greatly and caution should be taken to interpret data. To consider participant variability we choose to analyze data with a linear mixed model with subject and sounds as random effects.</p> <p>This study confirmed empirically the larger aversion for vocal sounds than non-vocal sounds in autism; however, we failed to show that NT participants found vocal sounds as more pleasant than non-vocal sounds. These results are consistent with clinical observation of an avoidance of vocal stimulation in autism (American Psychiatric Association, [<reflink idref="bib1" id="ref97">1</reflink>]). Yet, these data do not allow demonstrating that the lack of preference for vocal sounds in autism was driven by an average lower HNR in vocal sounds. In NT adults, we failed to show a relationship between HNR value and sounds pleasantness in vocal sounds, contrarily to what was shown using attractiveness ratings (Bestelmeyer et al., [<reflink idref="bib7" id="ref98">7</reflink>]; Bruckert et al., [<reflink idref="bib13" id="ref99">13</reflink>]), suggesting that attractiveness and pleasantness are not rooted in the same processes. In addition, participants rated pleasantness in sounds from different categories and other sounds could have influence judgements by creating a contextual norm. Both groups rated as more pleasant musical sounds than the other sound categories, consistent with previous results (Boso et al., [<reflink idref="bib11" id="ref100">11</reflink>]).</p> <p>Previous neuroimaging studies on voice perception in ASD have reported contradictory results. In one study with adults on the autism spectrum and associated intellectual disability it was shown that autistic adults did not show a preferential response to voices, due to a decrease response to voices (Gervais et al., [<reflink idref="bib21" id="ref101">21</reflink>]). On the other hand, in a study with a larger sample of adults without ID, a normal response to vocal sounds was found (Schelinski et al., [<reflink idref="bib55" id="ref102">55</reflink>]). In addition, in a study in children on the autism spectrum, it was shown that a subset of autistic children presented an altered response to non-vocal sounds (Bidet-Caulet et al., [<reflink idref="bib8" id="ref103">8</reflink>]; Latinus et al., [<reflink idref="bib34" id="ref104">34</reflink>]). It was suggested that this may reflect the atypical development of filters that allows optimizing voice perception in neurotypical development (Bidet-Caulet et al., [<reflink idref="bib8" id="ref105">8</reflink>]). HNR is one of the secondary features extracted from vocal sounds (Leaver & Rauschecker, [<reflink idref="bib35" id="ref106">35</reflink>]; Lewis et al., [<reflink idref="bib39" id="ref107">39</reflink>]), based on the integration of information extracted at the first level of processing. In our study, we mainly included adults on the autism spectrum without ID, while the subset of children showing impaired voice processing appears to be the one with lower verbal IQ (Latinus et al., [<reflink idref="bib34" id="ref108">34</reflink>]). Therefore, in our population of autistic adults the processing of HNR remains intact, and these participants may be less sensitive to noise in auditory stimulation as could have been expected. This could suggest that in the current sample of participants the first steps of sound processing, that consist of extracting HNR information, is intact. The aversion for vocal sounds reported in clinical observation likely reflects processes at later steps of voice perception, such as social (Martineau et al., [<reflink idref="bib40" id="ref109">40</reflink>]) or cognitive (Gebauer et al., [<reflink idref="bib20" id="ref110">20</reflink>]).</p> <p>A hypothesis was that the development of voice perception ability depends on the functioning of different steps in voice perception and impaired HNR processing could therefore influence voice encoding.</p> <p>In our group of autistic adults, mainly with no ID (only two participants), we found evidence that they judged vocal sounds and non-vocal sounds pleasantness differently, suggesting that these two sounds category are not equivalent in ASD. Although HNR influence pleasantness ratings, it was similar across the two groups suggesting that HNR alone does not explain the difference in sound appreciation. Note that, contrarily to what we expected, adults on the autism spectrum did not consider as more pleasant sounds with a high HNR. Note that part of our results could be explained by a confound between HNR levels and sound types as HNR variability was obtained using different sound categories that may have different impacts on autistic and NT individuals.</p> <hd id="AN0177598728-13">Limitations</hd> <p>Our task was an active judgment task, which limited the inclusion participants with associated intellectual disability (only two participants). This could be an important features of voice perception as previous studies have described a subset of children showing impaired voice perception, but those were characterized by low verbal IQ; a subsample of participants not really present in the current study. It would be interesting to evaluate auditory pleasantness, in linked with HNR level, using passive task such as a preferential looking paradigm.</p> <hd id="AN0177598728-14">Conclusion</hd> <p>Autistic adults judged non-vocal sounds more pleasant, confirming empirically clinical observation. Our results highlighted a dichotomy in the pleasantness judgements of vocal and non-vocal category, which was dependent on HNR level but group independent. Therefore, it seems that in our group of autistic adults, HNR is not the acoustical features that explains atypical auditory preference in ASD.</p> <hd id="AN0177598728-15">Author Contributions</hd> <p>LM and ML: wrote the manuscript. LM and ML: conceived, administered, analyzed and interpreted the data. CR: contributed to the theorical statistical review. FB-B and EH-D: contributed to the recruitment of participants and data interpretation. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.</p> <hd id="AN0177598728-16">Funding</hd> <p>Grant from the Fondation John Bost individualisée Recherche (RESAU project).</p> <hd id="AN0177598728-17">Declarations</hd> <p></p> <hd id="AN0177598728-18">Conflict of interest</hd> <p>This work was supported by a grant from the Fondation John Bost individualisée Recherche awarded to ML (RESAU project). They authors declare they have no conflict of interest.</p> <hd id="AN0177598728-19">Ethical Approval</hd> <p>This research was approved by: the Comité de Protection des Personnes EST I the 2017-04-20 (2017/23-ID RCB: 2017-A00756-47; PROSCEA) and the Comité d'Ethique pour les Recherches Non Interventionnelles Tours-Poitiers-1 on 2017-12-02.</p> <hd id="AN0177598728-20">Publisher's Note</hd> <p>Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.</p> <ref id="AN0177598728-21"> <title> References </title> <blist> <bibl id="bib1" idref="ref1" type="bt">1</bibl> <bibtext> American Psychiatric Association. Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders: DSM-5. 20135; American Psychiatric Association. 10.1176/appi.books.9780890425596</bibtext> </blist> <blist> <bibl id="bib2" idref="ref56" type="bt">2</bibl> <bibtext> Auguie, B. 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  Data: Sounds Pleasantness Ratings in Autism: Interaction between Social Information and Acoustical Noise Level
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  Group: Lang
  Data: English
– Name: Author
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  Group: Au
  Data: <searchLink fieldCode="AR" term="%22Lisa+Michel%22">Lisa Michel</searchLink> (ORCID <externalLink term="http://orcid.org/0000-0002-9610-3789">0000-0002-9610-3789</externalLink>)<br /><searchLink fieldCode="AR" term="%22Camille+Ricou%22">Camille Ricou</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="AR" term="%22Frédérique+Bonnet-Brilhault%22">Frédérique Bonnet-Brilhault</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="AR" term="%22Emannuelle+Houy-Durand%22">Emannuelle Houy-Durand</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="AR" term="%22Marianne+Latinus%22">Marianne Latinus</searchLink>
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  Label: Source
  Group: Src
  Data: <searchLink fieldCode="SO" term="%22Journal+of+Autism+and+Developmental+Disorders%22"><i>Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders</i></searchLink>. 2024 54(6):2148-2157.
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  Data: Springer. Available from: Springer Nature. One New York Plaza, Suite 4600, New York, NY 10004. Tel: 800-777-4643; Tel: 212-460-1500; Fax: 212-460-1700; e-mail: customerservice@springernature.com; Web site: https://link.springer.com/
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  Data: Y
– Name: Pages
  Label: Page Count
  Group: Src
  Data: 10
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  Label: Publication Date
  Group: Date
  Data: 2024
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  Label: Document Type
  Group: TypDoc
  Data: Journal Articles<br />Reports - Research
– Name: Subject
  Label: Descriptors
  Group: Su
  Data: <searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Autism+Spectrum+Disorders%22">Autism Spectrum Disorders</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Acoustics%22">Acoustics</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Auditory+Stimuli%22">Auditory Stimuli</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Emotional+Response%22">Emotional Response</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Cognitive+Processes%22">Cognitive Processes</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Music%22">Music</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Interests%22">Interests</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Adults%22">Adults</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Control+Groups%22">Control Groups</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Comparative+Analysis%22">Comparative Analysis</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Social+Cognition%22">Social Cognition</searchLink>
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  Label: DOI
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  Data: 10.1007/s10803-023-05989-6
– Name: ISSN
  Label: ISSN
  Group: ISSN
  Data: 0162-3257<br />1573-3432
– Name: Abstract
  Label: Abstract
  Group: Ab
  Data: A lack of response to voices, and a great interest for music are part of the behavioral expressions, commonly (self-)reported in Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). These atypical interests for vocal and musical sounds could be attributable to different levels of acoustical noise, quantified in the harmonic-to-noise ratio (HNR). No previous study has investigated explicit auditory pleasantness in ASD comparing vocal and non-vocal sounds, in relation to acoustic noise level. The aim of this study is to objectively evaluate auditory pleasantness. 16 adults on the autism spectrum and 16 neuro-typical (NT) matched adults rated the likeability of vocal and non-vocal sounds, with varying harmonic-to-noise ratio levels. A group by category interaction in pleasantness judgements revealed that participants on the autism spectrum judged vocal sounds as less pleasant than non-vocal sounds; an effect not found for NT participants. A category by HNR level interaction revealed that participants of both groups rated sounds with a high HNR as more pleasant for non-vocal sounds. A significant group by HNR interaction revealed that people on the autism spectrum tended to judge as less pleasant sounds with high HNR and more pleasant those with low HNR than NT participants. Acoustical noise level of sounds alone does not appear to explain atypical interest for voices and greater interest in music in ASD.
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  Data: 2024
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        Value: 10.1007/s10803-023-05989-6
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      – Text: English
    PhysicalDescription:
      Pagination:
        PageCount: 10
        StartPage: 2148
    Subjects:
      – SubjectFull: Autism Spectrum Disorders
        Type: general
      – SubjectFull: Acoustics
        Type: general
      – SubjectFull: Auditory Stimuli
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      – SubjectFull: Emotional Response
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      – SubjectFull: Music
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      – SubjectFull: Comparative Analysis
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      – SubjectFull: Social Cognition
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      – TitleFull: Sounds Pleasantness Ratings in Autism: Interaction between Social Information and Acoustical Noise Level
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