Difficulty listening in noisy environments is a common complaint of individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). However, the mechanisms underlying such auditory processing challenges are unknown. This preliminary study investigated auditory attention deployment in adults with ASD. Participants were instructed to maintain or switch attention between two simultaneous speech streams in three conditions: location (co-located versus ± 30° separation), voice (same voice versus male-female contrast), and both cues together. Results showed that individuals with ASD can selectively direct attention using location or voice cues, but performance was best when both cues were present. In comparison to neurotypical adults, overall performance was less accurate across all conditions. These findings warrant further investigation into auditory attention deployment differences in individuals with ASD.
Keywords: Auditory attention; Auditory processing; Autism spectrum disorder; Selective attention; Speech perception.
© 2021. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature.