Lecture 32 Flashcards
what do autistic children fixate on
specific sounds that do not have much functional significance
what is an example of fixations
a sound a clock makes
define echolalia
distinct form of speech that emerges in autistic children -> phrases are repeated that do not have any meaning to others
define super structuring
in autistic children -> repeatedly replay a smaller portion of a larger stimulus -> more repetition
what is the Zygotic theory
-> a stage in which sounds of speech are not distinct from musical sounds
-> impulse to imitate is take more precedence over the attachment of a meaning
what does echolalia do for autistic children
teaches turn taking, affirmation, self reflective commentary, rehearsal strategies
what did some autistic adults say about children who repeat words or phrases
they found that they were able to hear more detail that was originally perceived through repetitions
echolalia -> words are treated as musical objects, to be manipulated in what way?
through their sounding qualities rather than their meaning
true or false - absolute pitch is relatively rare in the population
true
what does absolute pitch being rare suggest about our brain
there could be something distinct about the way parts of the brain responsible for pitch memory develop in that population
how are musical representations encoded/stored in general population and autistic children
-> as a series of relative differences between notes in the general population
-> encoded in absolute terms (self-sufficient notes) in autistic children
why might it be possible that autistic individuals represent musical information more accurately than non-autistic population
non autistic individuals tend to represent pitch based information at a level that loses the surface detail
ockelford argues that a capacity for absolute pitch data capture allows for what
allows for autistic individuals to pick up instruments and reproduce musical sounds they’ve heard very easily with no training
describe the differences between people who have absolute pitch and relative pitch, in terms of reproducing music
absolute pitch -> more straightforward exercise in the form of one-to-one mapping between a memorized sound and have the mechanisms to reproduce
relative pitch -> much more difficult time to reproduce the musical structure that has been memorized
what are the 2 categories of alexithymia
type 1 -> reduced or absent affective responses
type 2 -> hard to understand affective labels to one’s physiological states of arousal
type alexithymia is estimated to affect how much of the population
~10%
true or false - type 2 alexithymia is less likely in high functional adults with autism
false - it is 85% likely
molnar Szakacs did a study to compare behavior for autistic and controls , what were the three types of stimuli used
- short sentences
- environmental noises
- classical music excerpts
molnar Szakacs did a study to compare behavior for autistic and controls -> what responses were looked at
positive affect, vocalizations and anticipation increased focus
molnar Szakacs did a study to compare behavior for autistic and controls -> what were the results
-> control group showed similar behavioral responses across all three stimuli
-> autistic children showed a stronger response to musical stimuli -> entirely capable of perceiving emotions a typical way
Molnar Szakacs and Heaton compared performance in an emotion identification between groups with autism and controls, what were the methods
identify three emotions -> happy, sad and fearful in 3 types of stimuli
1. short musical excerpts
2. non verbal affective vocalizations
3. three digits spoken with affective tone
Molnar Szakacs and Heaton compared performance in an emotion identification between groups with autism and controls -> what were the results
-> did not find an overall effect of group, meaning the autistic children were not worse at either task
Control group -> performance for nonverbal emotional vocalizations were positively correlated with the same for musical excerpts (verbal stimuli were not correlated)
Autistic group -> performance was correlated across all tasks
what is a possibility for why the autistic group had correlated performance across all tasks
- may interpret all three stimuli categories in similar ways
- could have treated all 3 stimuli as if they were musical in nature
mirror neuron system has to do with what behavior
imitation
what does the broken mirror hypothesis say
abnormal mirror neuron systems can contribute to deficits in imitation, emotional responses, face processing and joint attention
the mirror neuron system serves as what in the general population
as a neural hub that serves many functions that are different than autistic populations
is mirror neuron systems a domain general or domain specific mechanism
domain general
