Processing of prosodic cues of uncertainty in autistic and non-autistic adults: a study based on articulatory speech synthesis

Autism spectrum disorder is a term used to describe a constellation of early-appearing social communication deficits and repetitive sensory–motor behaviours associated with a strong genetic component as well as other causes. The outlook for many individuals with autism spectrum disorder today is brighter than it was 50 years ago; more people with the condition are able to speak, read, and live in the community rather than in institutions, and some will be largely free from symptoms of the disorder by adulthood. Nevertheless, most individuals will not work full-time or live independently. Genetics and neuroscience have identified intriguing patterns of risk, but without much practical benefit yet. Considerable work is still needed to understand how and when behavioural and medical treatments can be effective, and for which children, including those with substantial comorbidities. It is also important to implement what we already know and develop services for adults with autism spectrum disorder. Clinicians can make a difference by providing timely and individualised help to families navigating referrals and access to community support systems, by providing accurate information despite often unfiltered media input, and by anticipating transitions such as family changes and school entry and leaving.

An individual has a theory of mind if he imputes mental states to himself and others. A system of inferences of this kind is properly viewed as a theory because such states are not directly observable, and the system can be used to make predictions about the behavior of others. As to the mental states the chimpanzee may infer, consider those inferred by our own species, for example, purpose or intention , as well as knowledge, belief, thinking, doubt, guessing, pretending, liking , and so forth. To determine whether or not the chimpanzee infers states of this kind, we showed an adult chimpanzee a series of videotaped scenes of a human actor struggling with a variety of problems. Some problems were simple, involving inaccessible food – bananas vertically or horizontally out of reach, behind a box, and so forth – as in the original Kohler problems; others were more complex, involving an actor unable to extricate himself from a locked cage, shivering because of a malfunctioning heater, or unable to play a phonograph because it was unplugged. With each videotape the chimpanzee was given several photographs, one a solution to the problem, such as a stick for the inaccessible bananas, a key for the locked up actor, a lit wick for the malfunctioning heater. The chimpanzee's consistent choice of the correct photographs can be understood by assuming that the animal recognized the videotape as representing a problem, understood the actor's purpose, and chose alternatives compatible with that purpose.

This paper introduces the R package WRS2 that implements various robust statistical methods. It elaborates on the basics of robust statistics by introducing robust location, dispersion, and correlation measures. The location and dispersion measures are then used in robust variants of independent and dependent samples t tests and ANOVA, including between-within subject designs and quantile ANOVA. Further, robust ANCOVA as well as robust mediation models are introduced. The paper targets applied researchers; it is therefore kept rather non-technical and written in a tutorial style. Special emphasis is placed on applications in the social and behavioral sciences and illustrations of how to perform corresponding robust analyses in R. The R code for reproducing the results in the paper is given in the Supplementary Materials.