The electrophysiology of audiovisual processing in visual narratives in adolescents with autism spectrum disorder

•We investigated the audio-visual semantic processing in individuals with ASD.•We recorded ERPs to words and sounds associated with events in visual narrative.•We found similar N400 effects both in individuals with ASD and neurotypical ones.•Verbal processing is facilitated when embedded into a mean...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Brain and cognition 2021-07, Vol.151, p.105730-105730, Article 105730
Main Authors: Manfredi, Mirella, Cohn, Neil, Ribeiro, Beatriz, Sanchez Pinho, Pamella, Fernandes Rodrigues Pereira, Elisabete, Boggio, Paulo Sergio
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Adolescents
Audiovisual
Autism
Electrophysiology
Event-related potentials
Hearing
Information processing
Multimodality
N400
Narratives
Scalp
Semantics
Sensory integration
Teenagers
Visual narrative
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Summary:•We investigated the audio-visual semantic processing in individuals with ASD.•We recorded ERPs to words and sounds associated with events in visual narrative.•We found similar N400 effects both in individuals with ASD and neurotypical ones.•Verbal processing is facilitated when embedded into a meaningful visual information. We investigated the semantic processing of the multimodal audiovisual combination of visual narratives with auditory descriptive words and auditory sounds in individuals with ASD. To this aim, we recorded ERPs to critical auditory words and sounds associated with events in visual narrative that were either semantically congruent or incongruent with the climactic visual event. A similar N400 effect was found both in adolescents with ASD and neurotypical adolescents (ages 9–16) when accessing different types of auditory information (i.e. words and sounds) into a visual narrative. This result might suggest that verbal information processing in ASD adolescents could be facilitated by direct association with meaningful visual information. In addition, we observed differences in scalp distribution of later brain responses between ASD and neurotypical adolescents. This finding might suggest ASD adolescents differ from neurotypical adolescents during the processing of the multimodal combination of visual narratives with auditory information at later stages of the process. In conclusion, the semantic processing of verbal information, typically impaired in individuals with ASD, can be facilitated when embedded into a meaningful visual information.
ISSN:0278-2626
1090-2147
DOI:10.1016/j.bandc.2021.105730