Lecture 32

Question 1

what do autistic children fixate on

Answer 1

specific sounds that do not have much functional significance

Question 2

what is an example of fixations

Answer 2

a sound a clock makes

Question 3

define echolalia

Answer 3

distinct form of speech that emerges in autistic children -> phrases are repeated that do not have any meaning to others

Question 4

define super structuring

Answer 4

in autistic children -> repeatedly replay a smaller portion of a larger stimulus -> more repetition

Question 5

what is the Zygotic theory

Answer 5

-> 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

Question 6

what does echolalia do for autistic children

Answer 6

teaches turn taking, affirmation, self reflective commentary, rehearsal strategies

Question 7

what did some autistic adults say about children who repeat words or phrases

Answer 7

they found that they were able to hear more detail that was originally perceived through repetitions

Question 8

echolalia -> words are treated as musical objects, to be manipulated in what way?

Answer 8

through their sounding qualities rather than their meaning

Question 9

true or false - absolute pitch is relatively rare in the population

Answer 9

true

Question 10

what does absolute pitch being rare suggest about our brain

Answer 10

there could be something distinct about the way parts of the brain responsible for pitch memory develop in that population

Question 11

how are musical representations encoded/stored in general population and autistic children

Answer 11

-> as a series of relative differences between notes in the general population
-> encoded in absolute terms (self-sufficient notes) in autistic children

Question 12

why might it be possible that autistic individuals represent musical information more accurately than non-autistic population

Answer 12

non autistic individuals tend to represent pitch based information at a level that loses the surface detail

Question 13

ockelford argues that a capacity for absolute pitch data capture allows for what

Answer 13

allows for autistic individuals to pick up instruments and reproduce musical sounds they’ve heard very easily with no training

Question 14

describe the differences between people who have absolute pitch and relative pitch, in terms of reproducing music

Answer 14

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

Question 15

what are the 2 categories of alexithymia

Answer 15

type 1 -> reduced or absent affective responses
type 2 -> hard to understand affective labels to one’s physiological states of arousal

Question 16

type alexithymia is estimated to affect how much of the population

Answer 16

~10%

Question 17

true or false - type 2 alexithymia is less likely in high functional adults with autism

Answer 17

false - it is 85% likely

Question 18

molnar Szakacs did a study to compare behavior for autistic and controls , what were the three types of stimuli used

Answer 18

1. short sentences
2. environmental noises
3. classical music excerpts

Question 19

molnar Szakacs did a study to compare behavior for autistic and controls -> what responses were looked at

Answer 19

positive affect, vocalizations and anticipation increased focus

Question 20

molnar Szakacs did a study to compare behavior for autistic and controls -> what were the results

Answer 20

-> 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

Question 21

Molnar Szakacs and Heaton compared performance in an emotion identification between groups with autism and controls, what were the methods

Answer 21

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

Question 22

Molnar Szakacs and Heaton compared performance in an emotion identification between groups with autism and controls -> what were the results

Answer 22

-> 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

Question 23

what is a possibility for why the autistic group had correlated performance across all tasks

Answer 23

1. may interpret all three stimuli categories in similar ways
2. could have treated all 3 stimuli as if they were musical in nature

Question 24

mirror neuron system has to do with what behavior

Answer 24

imitation

Question 25

what does the broken mirror hypothesis say

Answer 25

abnormal mirror neuron systems can contribute to deficits in imitation, emotional responses, face processing and joint attention

Question 26

the mirror neuron system serves as what in the general population

Answer 26

as a neural hub that serves many functions that are different than autistic populations

Question 27

is mirror neuron systems a domain general or domain specific mechanism

Answer 27

domain general