The relationship between level of autistic traits and local bias in the context of the McGurk effect

The McGurk effect is a well-known illustration that demonstrates the influence of visual information on hearing in the context of speech perception. Some studies have reported that individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) display abnormal processing of audio-visual speech integration, while other studies showed contradictory results. Based on the dimensional model of ASD, we administered two analog studies to examine the link between level of autistic traits, as assessed by the Autism Spectrum Quotient (AQ), and the McGurk effect among a sample of university students. In the first experiment, we found that autistic traits correlated negatively with fused (McGurk) responses. Then, we manipulated presentation types of visual stimuli to examine whether the local bias toward visual speech cues modulated individual differences in the McGurk effect. The presentation included four types of visual images, comprising no image, mouth only, mouth and eyes, and full face. The results revealed that global facial information facilitates the influence of visual speech cues on McGurk stimuli. Moreover, individual differences between groups with low and high levels of autistic traits appeared when the full-face visual speech cue with an incongruent voice condition was presented. These results suggest that individual differences in the McGurk effect might be due to a weak ability to process global facial information in individuals with high levels of autistic traits.