Neural Sensitivity to Conversational Inter-Speaker Gaps in the Broad Autism Phenotype

Area of Science:

• Neuroscience
• Psycholinguistics
• Autism Spectrum Disorder Research

Background:

• Pragmatic language impairments are characteristic of the broad autism phenotype (BAP).
• Objective measures of pragmatic language, like turn-taking, are needed to understand BAP.
• Inter-speaker timing in conversations is crucial for pragmatic language processing.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate the relationship between neural and behavioral responses to inter-speaker turn-taking and the BAP.
• To examine how different inter-speaker gap durations affect responses in adults with varying autism-associated traits.

Main Methods:

• Utilized well-validated conversational stimuli with varied inter-speaker gap durations.
• Measured event-related potentials (ERPs), specifically stimulus-preceding negativity and P3, elicited by conversational gaps and responses.
• Assessed subjective ratings of conversation quality in 63 adults stratified for autism-associated traits.

Main Results:

• Individuals with higher autism-associated traits exhibited reduced P3 responses to extended inter-speaker gaps, indicating decreased salience.
• Monitoring of inter-speaker gaps and perceived conversation quality were not significantly related to autism-associated traits.
• A reduced P3 response to longer conversational pauses was observed in participants with more autism-associated traits.

Conclusions:

• Pragmatic inference of inter-speaker gaps may be specifically impaired in individuals with higher autism-associated traits.
• The P3 event-related potential (ERP) shows potential as a neurobehavioral marker for these pragmatic language differences in the BAP.
• Findings lay the groundwork for future neurobehavioral research on pragmatic language in autism.