Reduced precision of motor and perceptual rhythmic timing in autistic adults

Abstract

Recent results suggest that autistic individuals exhibit reduced accuracy compared to non-autistic peers in temporally coordinating their actions with predictable external cues, e.g., synchronizing finger taps to an auditory metronome. However, it is not yet clear whether these difficulties are driven primarily by motor differences or extend into perceptual rhythmic timing tasks. We recruited autistic and non-autistic participants for an online study testing both finger tapping synchronization and continuation as well as rhythmic time perception (anisochrony detection). We fractionated each participant's synchronization results into parameters representing error correction, motor noise, and internal time-keeper noise, and also investigated error-correcting responses to small metronome timing perturbations. Contrary to previous work, we did not find strong evidence for reduced synchronization error correction. However, we found compelling evidence for noisier internal rhythmic timekeeping in the synchronization, continuation, and perceptual components of the experiment. These results suggest that noisier internal rhythmic timing processes underlie some sensorimotor coordination challenges in autism.