Task-irrelevant affective prosody perception by children with high autistic traits under attentional loads: electroencephalographic and behavioural data
Description
Impaired social-emotional reciprocity and verbal communication characterise Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). This dataset provides electroencephalographic (EEG) signals related to implicit emotional speech perception under low, intermediate, and high attentional demands. Demographic and behavioural data are also provided. Thirty-one children with high autistic traits (mean age: 10-year-old, SD: 1, 2 girls) and their parents or legal guardians participated in data collection. Assessments of autistic behaviours severity using the Autism Spectrum Rating Scales (ASRS, parent report) are provided. During the experiment, children listened to task-irrelevant affective prosodies while answering three visual tasks: neutral image viewing (low attentional load), one-target 4-disc Multiple Object Tracking (MOT; intermediate), one-target 8-disc MOT (high). EEG data recorded during all three tasks and tracking capacity (behavioural data) from MOT conditions are included in the dataset. Beforehand, children answered the Edinburgh Handedness Inventory, and resting-state EEG activity of children was recorded for 2 minutes with eyes open. Those data are also provided. The present dataset can be used to investigate the electrophysiological correlates of implicit emotion and speech perceptions and their interaction with attentional load and autistic traits severity. Besides, resting-state EEG data may be useful for a clinical characterisation of the autistic condition at rest. Finally, behavioural MOT data can be analysed to assess dynamic and selective attentional functions in children with high-autistic traits. Keywords Electroencephalography, Multiple-Object Tracking, Selective Attention, Dynamic Attention, Autism Spectrum Disorder, Emotion Processing, Prosody