Contrasting two types of auditory distraction in autistic and neurotypical individuals: A preregistered study

Abstract

Attentional control (AC) allows us to concentrate on relevant information and ignore irrelevant information. The processing of irrelevant auditory information cannot be completely suppressed, however, because of the openness of the auditory system. As a result, auditory distractors have a negative effect on a variety of different cognitive tasks. Auditory distraction in individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is of particular importance, because of differences in AC compared to neurotypical individuals. However, a systematic, adequately powered investigation has not yet been conducted. The current pre-registered study was designed to close this empirical gap using a classic and robust empirical approach. We contrasted two types of auditory distraction in adult autistic participants with at least medium intellectual and language abilities and neurotypical participants, (1) the disruptive effect of changing distractors compared to repeated distractors (i.e., the changing-state effect), and (2) the disruptive effect of a single distractor that deviates from the previous stimulus pattern (i.e., the auditory deviant effect). The weak central coherence account predicts a more pronounced changing-state effect in autistic individuals due to superior local low-level information processing, and no differences for the auditory deviant effect. The hypothesis of predictive impairment in autism predicts no differences in the changing-state effect, and a reduced auditory deviant effect due to deficits in the formation of predictions in ASD. Our results are partly consistent and partly inconsistent with these predictions. Overall, we found that autistic and neurotypical individuals are largely similar in their susceptibility to auditory distraction.