Brief Report: Impaired Differentiation of Vegetative/Affective and Intentional Nonverbal Vocalizations in a Subject with Asperger Syndrome (AS)

“During the 1981 All-England tennis championships at Wimbledon, officials found themselves confronted with a dilemma. Some players particularly men like Jimmy Connors, were regularly giving loud grunts as they hit the ball. The grunters’ opponents protested to the officials, asking that this behavior be stopped. Opponents claimed that grunts were distracting and were given on purpose to throw them off their timing. But when the officials confronted players like Connors, they received a slightly different explanation. “Sure,” explained Connors, “some players do grunt on purpose—but not me. I really have no control over my grunting, it just happens when I hit the ball hard.” Like Connors, most of the other grunters were willing to admit that some players did grunt intentionally, but each denied that he himself had any conscious control over these particular vocalizations. When the officials tried to determine, by observing different players, which grunts were intentional and which were not, they found the distinction virtually impossible to make. The only conclusion they could agree on was that grunts were indeed distracting, regardless of whether they were given on purpose or just happened as part of the exertion of hitting a ball hard.” (Cheney and Seyfarth 1990).