Nichole Scheerer

• Doctor of Philosophy
• Assistant Professor at Wilfrid Laurier University

Auditory feedback plays an important role in the acquisition of fluent speech; however, this role may change once speech is acquired and individuals no longer experience persistent developmental changes to the brain and vocal tract. For this reason, we investigated whether the role of auditory feedback in sensorimotor learning differs across childr...

Speech motor control develops gradually as the acoustics of speech are mapped onto the positions and movements of the articulators. In this event-related potential (ERP) study, children and adults aged 4-30 years produced vocalizations while exposed to frequency-altered feedback. Vocal pitch variability and the latency of vocal responses were found...

Hearing one's own voice is important for regulating ongoing speech, and for mapping speech sounds onto articulator movements. However, it is currently unknown whether attention mediates changes in the relationship between motor commands and their acoustic output, which are necessary as growth and aging inevitably cause changes to the vocal tract. I...

Auditory event-related potentials (ERP)s of the P1-N1-P2 complex are modulated when participants hear frequency-altered feedback (FAF) regarding their ongoing vocal productions. However, the relationship between the feedback perturbation magnitudes and the resultant neural responses is at present unclear. In the present study, we exposed speakers t...

Auditory feedback plays an important role in monitoring vocal output and determining when adjustments are necessary. In this study a group of untrained singers participated in a frequency altered feedback experiment to examine if accuracy at matching a note could predict the degree of compensation to auditory feedback that was shifted in frequency....

ABSTRACT: Speech is a critical aspect of human communication, with speech production involving many complex cognitive and motor control systems. Importantly, auditory feedback is used in speech production to allow for the monitoring and regulation of errors. Previous research suggests that attention is important to our ability to use auditory feedb...

UPDATED ABSTRACT (MAY 2025): Sensory processing differences may provide key insights into child development and behavioral outcomes. We examined sensory processing in children 5–12 years. Parent-report surveys assessed children's sensory processing, social skills, executive functioning, and attention. Results of a K-means cluster analysis (n=106;...

Humans are inherently social creatures, yet considerable variability exists in our social behaviours. It is unclear what factors contribute to this variability. Given the complex and abundant sensory stimuli present in our daily environments, differences in sensory processing abilities may contribute to the variation observed in social behaviours....

Background: Many autistic individuals face social challenges which may partly stem from their interaction partners, especially when biases toward autistic people are present. Research has shown that non-autistic adults and adolescents often display strong implicit and explicit biases towards autistic children and adults. These biases can surface a...

Learning is influenced by one's sensory environment. ➢ Sensory input can enhance or interfere with brain functions such as reasoning and knowledge retention, depending on its intensity and nature (Press et al., 2020). ➢ Studies have shown that increased auditory and visual distractions in educational settings negatively impact students' learning ou...

Decreased sound tolerance (DST) is an encompassing term for conditions marked by a reduced tolerance to everyday sounds. Misophonia, sensitivity to specific trigger sounds which cue aversive responses, is one DST subtype. Hyperacusis, another DST subtype, occurs when people are irritated by general sounds that are unbothersome to others. Research s...

Many autistic individuals face social challenges that may be due to the negative perceptions of their non-autistic peers. This study investigated school-aged children’s first impressions of autistic and non-autistic children. Thirty-seven children (ages 5-12 years) watched brief videos of autistic and non-autistic children discussing their interest...

Many autistic individuals face social challenges that may be due to the negative perceptions of their non-autistic peers. This study investigated school-aged children's first impressions of autistic and non-autistic children. Thirty-seven children (ages 5-12 years) watched brief videos of autistic and non-autistic children discussing their interest...

Sensory processing differences may provide key insights into mental health outcomes. We examined undergraduates (n = 1647; Mage =19.65 years, SDage=2.38 years; 361 Males, 1248 Females, 38 Other) who completed surveys assessing their sensory processing abilities, social skills, depressive and anxiety symptoms. Results of the K-means cluster analysis...

Gambling has proliferated into virtual reality (VR). Increasing gambling and VR popularity prompts the blending of the two. Affective arousal can influence decision-making, an intrinsic aspect of gambling. The somatic marker hypothesis and other theories of cognitive valuation posit that affective arousal is beneficial for decision-making. Changing...

Speech is an important aspect of human communication. The feedforward and feedback motor control systems are critical for fluent speech production. Many factors influence the weighting of these feedback and feedforward motor control systems, including dividing attention. Yet, little research has explored the relationship between speakers' natural a...

Decreased sound tolerance (DST) is an encompassing term for conditions marked by a reduced tolerance to everyday sounds. Misophonia, sensitivity to specific trigger sounds which cue aversive responses and physiological arousal, is one DST subtype. Sounds ranging from chewing to ticking clocks can be extremely distressing to those with misophonia. T...

**PROPOSED PROJECT** Social neuroscience research on stigma is limited, with most studies focusing on race or gender biases (Amodio & Cikara, 2021), and little work addressing autism stigma. While previous studies have investigated brain regions associated with stigma (Harris & Fiske, 2006; Amodio & Cikara, 2021; Forbes, 2024), there is a lack of r...

Speech is critical for communication and as such, it is vital to understand the mechanisms involved in the control of speech production. Feedback and feedforward motor control systems work together to correct for errors in speech production and initiate speech, respectively (Guenther et al., 2006). Attention has been shown to impact the weighting o...

Humans are inherently social creatures, yet considerable variability exists in our social behaviours. It is unclear what factors contribute to this variability. Given the complex and abundant sensory stimuli present in our daily environments, differences in sensory processing abilities may contribute to the variation observed in social behaviours....

Disorders of decreased sound tolerance such as misophonia and hyperacusis cause significant distress through strong negative emotional and physiological reactions to everyday sounds. These conditions have been associated with poor mental and physical health as they impact day to day life. Prior to the recent development of consensus definitions of...

Humans are inherently social creatures, yet considerable variability exists in our social behaviours. It is unclear what factors contribute to this variability. Given the complex and abundant sensory stimuli present in our daily environments, differences in sensory processing abilities may contribute to the variation observed in social behaviours....

Humans are inherently social creatures, yet considerable variability exists in our social behaviours. It is unclear what factors contribute to this variability. Given the complex and abundant sensory stimuli present in our daily environments, differences in sensory processing abilities may contribute to the variation observed in social behaviours....

When evaluated in a social context, autistic people are consistently evaluated more negatively than non-autistic people. This negative bias has the potential to be particularly harmful if held by influential role models, such as teachers. Teachers play a pivotal role in shaping children's learning, mental health, and academic success. As such, this...

Speech production is a complex process involving the coordination of cognitive, linguistic, and motor control systems, facilitated by auditory feedback. Real-time monitoring of auditory feedback allows individuals to adjust their speech sounds, promoting fluent communication. Neurodivergent (ND) people, such as those with autism and attention-defic...

Introduction. Feedback and feedforward motor control systems are used to produce and regulate the controlled movements associated with speech (Guenther 1995; Guenther et al. 2006). The feedforward system relies on stored representations that map the relationship between articulator movements and their associated speech sounds (Guenther & Vladusich...

Purpose: Autistic individuals often face challenges perceiving and expressing emotions, potentially stemming from differences in speech prosody. Here we explore how autism diagnoses between groups, and measures of social competence within groups may be related to, first, children’s speech characteristics (both prosodic features and amount of sponta...

Autism is a neurodevelopmental condition that is characterized by difficulties in social communication and interaction, as well as repetitive and restrictive behaviours and interests which are often present from early development. Autistic individuals often encounter difficulties in expression and perception of prosody, which is the rhythm, intonat...

Sensory information plays a fundamental role in the brain's ability to learn and regulate movements. This study aims to investigate how endogenous sensory processing differences alter gait control. Gait refers to one’s pattern of walking, and is a complex process informed by a number of cognitive factors. While it has been established that cognitiv...

Decreased sound tolerance (DST) is a condition marked by a reduced tolerance to everyday sounds. Of late, there has been increasing research on DST, lessening some of the ambiguity around this condition. With this, a subtype of DST, misophonia, has emerged. Misophonia is a neuropsychiatric condition where aversive responses and physiological arousa...

Auditory processing disorders related to decreased sound tolerance (DST), such as hyperacusis and misophonia, are more prevalent and impairing in populations with sensory processing differences, such as autism. However, few studies have investigated the predictive value of sensory processing differences on self-reported impairment levels related to...

Humans are inherently social creatures, yet considerable variability exists in social behaviours, and it is unclear what factors are responsible for this variability. Given the abundant sensory stimuli present in our environments, disparities in sensory processing could contribute to this variation. Sensory processing differences may have significa...

Sensory information plays a fundamental role in the brain's ability to learn and regulate movements. This study aims to investigate how sensory processing differences related to trait (stable) anxiety influence motor control. Using Virtual Reality (VR) technology, we explored how varying levels of sensory information influenced motor control for in...

Autistic individuals have difficulty perceiving and expressing emotions. Since prosodic changes in speech (i.e. changes in intonation, stress, and rhythm, etc.) are crucial for extracting information about the emotional state of the speaker, differences in perceiving and interpreting these prosodic changes may lead to challenges in social communica...

Background Decreased sound tolerance (DST) is an increased sensitivity to sound at levels that would not bother most people. DST is highly prevalent in autistic adults; however, the extent to which DST differs across autistic and non-autistic adults is uncertain. This study explores multiple domains of DST symptoms and the severity of DST symptoms,...

Introduction Although autism inclusion and acceptance has increased in recent years, autistic people continue to face stigmatization, exclusion, and victimization. Based on brief 10-second videos, non-autistic adults rate autistic adults less favourably than they rate non-autistic adults in terms of traits and behavioural intentions. In the current...

Auditory feedback is essential for vocal motor control whereby exposing speakers to sudden shifts in their vocal pitch (F0) causes reciprocal changes in F0 production. However, it is unclear whether the vocal motor control system can track and compensate for constantly changing errors perceived in sensory feedback. To test this, participants were a...

Negative judgements of autistic people relative to non-autistic people have been consistently reported. In order to develop methods for improving people’s perceptions of autistic people, it is important to understand what factors may influence these judgements. In this study, autistic adults, parents of autistic people, professionals who work with...

The current study examined whether social competence and autistic traits are related to anxiety and depression in autistic and non-autistic children. Parents of 340 children aged 6 to 12 years old, including 186 autistic and 154 non-autistic children completed the Autism Spectrum Quotient (AQ) to assess their child’s autistic traits, the Multidimen...

Sensory information plays a fundamental role in the brain's ability to learn and regulate movements. This study aims to investigate how endogenous sensory processing differences alter motor output. Using virtual reality (VR) technology, we explore how varying levels of sensory information influence motor control, while measuring levels of sensory s...

Sensory processing abilities are highly variable within and across people diagnosed with autism and attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). This study examined the transdiagnostic nature of sensory processing abilities, and their association with features of autism and ADHD, in a large sample of autistic people (n = 495) and people with AD...

Decreased sound tolerance (DST) is the most common sensory difficulty experienced by autistic individuals. Parents of 88 autistic children and young adults between the ages of 3 and 30 described coping strategies and physical and emotional responses used to deal with distressing sounds, and their impact on daily activities. Loud, sudden, and high-p...

Introduction: Autistic children have difficulties forming positive social relationships. Stigmatization of autism may influence the negative social experiences of autistic children (Han et al., 2021). First impressions formed from viewing 10-second video clips of autistic adults were less favourable than those of non-autistic adults (DeBrabander et...

Alexithymia impacts an individual’s ability to recognize and understand emotions and frequently co-occurs with autism. This study investigated the relationship between children’s alexithymia, autistic traits, and caregiver reactions to their child’s negative emotions. Caregivers of 54 autistic and 51 non-autistic children between the ages of 7 and...

Background: Social communication difficulties are a clinical characteristic of autism, but social interactions are reciprocal in nature and autistic individuals' social abilities may not be the only factor influencing their social success. Nonautistic individuals' social perceptions and behavior also contribute to autistic individuals' social diff...

Background Social communication difficulties are a clinical characteristic of autism, but social interactions are reciprocal in nature and autistic individuals’ social abilities may not be the only factor influencing their social success. Non-autistic individuals’ social perceptions and behavior also contribute to autistic individuals’ social diffi...

Background: Camouflaging, defined as the use of strategies to compensate for or hide autistic traits, is associated with internalizing behaviour (i.e., anxiety and depression) in both autistic and non-autistic people. Non-autistic adults who have poorer social competence tend to engage in more camouflaging, thus it’s unclear whether the increase in...

Alexithymia impacts an individual’s ability to recognize and understand emotions and frequently co-occurs with autism. This study investigated the relationship between children’s alexithymia, autistic traits, and caregiver reactions to their child’s negative emotions. Caregivers of 54 autistic and 51 non-autistic children between the ages of 7 and...

Sensory processing abilities are highly variable within and across people diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). This study examined the transdiagnostic nature of sensory processing abilities, and their association with features of ASD and ADHD, in a large sample of autistic people (n = 49...

Background Atypical reactions to the sensory environment are often reported in autistic individuals, with a high degree of variability across the sensory modalities. These sensory differences have been shown to promote challenging behaviours and distress in autistic individuals and are predictive of other functions including motor, social, and cogn...

This study examined involuntary capture of attention, overt attention, and stimulus valence and arousal ratings, all factors that can contribute to potential attentional biases to face and train objects in children with and without autism spectrum disorder (ASD). In the visual domain, faces are particularly captivating, and are thought to have a ‘s...

Atypical reactions to the sensory environment are often reported in autistic individuals, with a high degree of variability across the sensory modalities. These sensory differences have been shown to promote challenging behaviours and distress in autistic individuals, with downstream effects on other functions including motor, social, and cognitive...

The present research investigated how alexithymia and autism influence caregivers’ reactions to their child’s negative emotional expressions. It was hypothesized that autistic children would exhibit higher alexithymia and autistic traits, and that caregivers of autistic children would report greater supportive, and less restrictive/controlling, par...

Alexithymia is characterized by difficulties identifying and describing one's own emotions and the emotions of others. These challenges with understanding emotions in people with alexithymia may give rise to difficulties with social interactions. Given that alexithymia frequently co‐occurs with autism spectrum disorder (ASD), and that both populati...

Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is a developmental disorder characterized by persistent deficits in social communication and interaction. Speech is an important form of social communication. Prosody (e.g. vocal pitch, rhythm, etc.), one aspect of the speech signal, is crucial for ensuring information about the emotionality, excitability, and intent...

Background: Autistic individuals often experience difficulties in social settings. Although autistic individuals may not intuitively know the "typical" way to behave in social settings, many autistic individuals have a desire to fit in so they develop techniques to "camouflage" their autistic traits. Although camouflaging may help individuals to n...

Individuals diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) have difficulty perceiving and expressing emotions. Since prosodic changes in speech (i.e. changes in intonation, stress, rhythm, etc.) are crucial for extracting information about the emotional state of a speaker, an inability to perceive and interpret these prosodic changes may be related...

Children maintain fluent speech despite dramatic changes to their articulators during development. Auditory feedback aids in the acquisition and maintenance of the sensorimotor mechanisms that underlie vocal motor control. MacDonald, Johnson, Forsythe, Plante, and Munhall (2012) reported that toddlers' speech motor control systems may "suppress" th...

Parent mediated interventions have the potential to positively influence the interactions and developmental outcomes of children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). However, a range of factors relating to children, parents and caregivers, and study design may impact on outcomes and thus the generalizability of these interventions to the broader co...

Auditory feedback plays an important role in monitoring and correcting for errors during speech production. Previous research suggests that at vocalization onset, auditory feedback is compared to a sensory prediction generated by the motor system to ensure the desired fundamental frequency (F0) is produced. After vocalization onset, auditory feedba...

Previous studies suggest that a perception-action dissociation exists for the cortical processing of vocal pitch, because speakers compensate for small vocal errors without awareness. In this event-related potential (ERP) study, participants vocalized while hearing their productions either altered or unaltered in pitch, and reported whether their a...

Auditory feedback is required to maintain fluent speech. At present, it is unclear how attention modulates auditory feedback processing during ongoing speech. In this event-related potential (ERP) study, participants vocalized/a/, while they heard their vocal pitch suddenly shifted downward a ½ semitone in both single and dual-task conditions. Duri...

Although some evidence is consistent with the notion of distinct cortical systems that support memory and perception, mounting evidence supports a representational-hierarchical view of cognition, which posits that distinctions lie in simple feature representations versus more complex conjunctive representations of many stimulus features simultaneou...

Speech production requires the combined effort of a feedback control system driven by sensory feedback, and a feedforward control system driven by internal models. However, the factors dictating the relative weighting of these feedback and feedforward control systems are unclear. In this event-related potential (ERP) study, participants produced vo...

Canadian Journal of Experimental Psychology 68(4):285-285

Understanding the neural processing of auditory feedback during speech is essential to the development of a comprehensive model of speech motor control. Currently, the relationship between the magnitude of errors detected in feedback and the evoked neural responses is unclear. We exposed speakers to sudden changes in vocal pitch that ranged from 0...

Speech motor control develops gradually as the acoustics of speech are mapped onto the positions and movements of the articulators. In this study children and adults between 4-30 years of age produced vocalizations while exposed to frequency altered feedback (FAF). The amplitude and latency of the vocal responses were found to differ as a function...

Speaking and singing require accurate control of the fundamental frequency (F0) of the voice. Recent research indicates that F0 control involves an interplay between closed and open loop control. We used a frequency-altered auditory feedback paradigm in two experiments to investigate the impact vocal training has on the plasticity of the acoustic-m...