Listening in a noisy world: The impact of acoustic cues and background music on speech perception in autism.

Recognising speech in noise involves focusing on a target speaker while filtering out competing voices and sounds. Acoustic cues, such as vocal characteristics and spatial location, help differentiate between speakers. However, autistic individuals may process these cues differently, making it more challenging for them to perceive speech in such conditions. This study investigated how autistic individuals use acoustic cues to follow a target speaker and whether background music increases processing demands. Thirty-six autistic and 36 non-autistic participants, recruited in the United Kingdom, identified information from a target speaker while ignoring a competing speaker and background music. The competing speaker's gender and location either matched or differed from the target. The autistic group exhibited lower mean accuracy across cue conditions, indicating general challenges in recognising speech in noise. Trial-level analyses revealed that while both groups showed accuracy improvements over time without acoustic cues, the autistic group demonstrated smaller gains, suggesting greater difficulty in tracking the target speaker without distinct acoustic features. Background music did not disproportionately affect autistic participants but had a greater impact on those with stronger local processing tendencies. Using a naturalistic paradigm mimicking real-life scenarios, this study provides insights into speech-in-noise processing in autism, informing strategies to support speech perception in complex environments.Lay abstractThis study examined how autistic and non-autistic adults understand speech when other voices or music were playing in the background. Participants focused on one main speaker while another voice played simultaneously. Sometimes, the second voice differed from the main one in gender or where the sound was coming from. These differences made it easier to tell the voices apart and understand what the main speaker was saying. Both autistic and non-autistic participants did better when these differences were present. But autistic individuals struggled more when the two voices were the same gender and came from the same location. Background music also made it harder to understand speech for everyone, but it especially affected autistic participants who tended to focus more on small details. These findings help us understand how autistic individuals process speech in noisy environments and could lead to better ways to support communication.