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Updated: Jun 10, 2026
Testing Sensory and Multisensory Function in Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder
Published on: April 22, 2015
Multisensory Attenuation of the Pupil Light Response in Autistic and Non-Autistic Children
Chloe Brittenham1,2,3, Theo Vanneau1,2,3, Sophie Molholm1,2,3
1Cognitive Neurophysiology Laboratory, Department of Pediatrics, Albert Einstein College of Medicine, Bronx, New York, USA.
Insights
Auditory stimuli can alter pupil responses to light in children. While both autistic and non-autistic children showed similar early visual-autonomic processing, autistic children displayed distinct pupil response dynamics.
Area of Science:
- Neuroscience
- Autism Spectrum Disorder Research
- Sensory Processing
Background:
- Autonomic nervous system responses to sensory input are atypical in autism.
- The impact of multisensory integration on autonomic responses, specifically the pupil light reflex (PLR), remains under-explored in autism.
- Understanding sensory-autonomic functioning is crucial for comprehending autism.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate if auditory stimuli modulate the pupil light reflex (PLR) in autistic and non-autistic children.
- To explore potential differences in cross-modal sensory modulation of the PLR between autistic and non-autistic children.
- To examine how multisensory integration influences autonomic responses in autism.
Main Methods:
- Pupillometry was employed to measure pupil responses in 72 children (34 non-autistic, 38 autistic) aged 8-14 years.
- Participants were exposed to visual-only, auditory-only, and audiovisual stimuli.
- Baseline-corrected pupil responses were analyzed across different time windows to assess dynamic changes.
Main Results:
- Across all participants, auditory stimuli induced pupil dilation, while visual stimuli caused constriction.
- Simultaneous audiovisual stimuli resulted in attenuated pupil constriction compared to visual-only stimuli, supporting multisensory attenuation of the PLR.
- Autistic children exhibited significantly different dynamic pupil responses (less constriction, greater dilation) in a specific post-stimulus time window (500-1000 ms), indicating altered sensory-autonomic trajectory.
Conclusions:
- Cross-modal modulation of the pupil light reflex is present in both autistic and non-autistic children.
- Auditory stimuli influence early visual-autonomic processing similarly across groups.
- Group differences in the dynamic trajectory of pupil responses suggest altered sensory-autonomic functioning in autism, particularly in arousal regulation and sensory integration.
Abstract:
Autonomic responses to sensory stimuli are altered in autism, yet little is known about how multisensory input modulates these responses. This study examined whether auditory stimuli affect the pupil light reflex (PLR), a parasympathetically driven response to light, in autistic and non-autistic children. Pupillometry was used to measure responses to visual-only (V), auditory-only (A), and audiovisual (AV) stimuli in 72 children aged 8-14 years (34 non-autistic, 38 autistic). We hypothesized that auditory input would attenuate pupil constriction in non-autistic children in the AV condition and that this cross-modal modulation might differ in autism, reflecting altered sensory-autonomic functioning. Across groups, results revealed a consistent pattern: auditory stimuli elicited pupil dilation, visual stimuli evoked constriction and simultaneous AV stimuli led to attenuated constriction relative to visual-only trials. This attenuation lends support to prior findings of multisensory attenuation of the PLR. Time-binned analysis revealed a group effect during the 500-1000 ms post-stimulus window: autistic children showed significantly more positive baseline-corrected pupil responses across conditions (i.e., less constriction in V/AV and greater dilation in A), suggesting group differences in the dynamic trajectory of the pupil response. Contrary to expectations, autistic and non-autistic children did not differ significantly on peak constriction or constriction latency within visual conditions. Offering insight into how autistic individuals integrate sensory information and regulate arousal, these findings support the presence of cross-modal modulation of the PLR and suggest that auditory signals influence early-stage visual-autonomic processing similarly across groups.
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