International Meeting for Autism Research (May 7 - 9, 2009): Perception of Emotion in Musical Performance in Adolescents with ASD

Friday, May 8, 2009

Northwest Hall (Chicago Hilton)

12:00 PM

A. K. Bhatara , Head & Neck Surgery, University of California, Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA

E. M. Quintin , Psychology, Université du Québec à Montréal & Centre for Interdisciplinary Research in Music, Media, and Technology, Montréal, QC, Canada

E. Fombonne , Head, Division of Child Psychiatry, McGill University, Montreal, QC, Canada

D. J. Levitin , Psychology, McGill University, Montreal, QC, Canada

Background: Individuals with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) are impaired in understanding the emotional undertones of speech, many of which are communicated through prosody. Musical performance has similar prosodic aspects.

Objectives: The goal of this study was to examine the effects of within-performance timing and amplitude variation on the ability of adolescents with high-functioning ASD to understand emotion.

Methods: We created piano performances of Chopin nocturnes with varying degrees of emotional expressivity (by manipulating timing and amplitude variation) and asked 32 adolescents with ASD and 32 matched controls as well as 11 individuals with Williams syndrome to rate how emotional these manipulated excerpts sounded.

Results: The participants with ASD did not differentiate among the levels of emotional expressivity, demonstrating an impairment relative to the participants with Williams syndrome and the control group.

Conclusions: Participants with ASD are impaired at judging emotionality from musical performance.

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