Abstract
Social interactions typically involve movements of the body that become synchronized over time and both intentional and spontaneous interactional synchrony have been found to be an essential part of successful human interaction. However, our understanding of the importance of temporal dimensions of social motor synchrony in social dysfunction is limited. Here, we used a pendulum coordination paradigm to assess dynamic, process-oriented measures of social motor synchrony in adolescents with and without autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Our data indicate that adolescents with ASD demonstrate less synchronization in both spontaneous and intentional interpersonal coordination. Coupled oscillator modeling suggests that ASD participants assembled a synchronization dynamic with a weaker coupling strength, which corresponds to a lower sensitivity and decreased attention to the movements of the other person, but do not demonstrate evidence of a delay in information transmission. The implication of these findings for isolating an ASD-specific social synchronization deficit that could serve as an objective, bio-behavioral marker is discussed.
Highlights
Individuals with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) exhibit numerous impairments in social interaction that typically persist throughout adolescence and adulthood (Ballaban-Gil et al, 1996; Howlin et al, 2004; Billstedt et al, 2005; Eaves and Ho, 2008; American Psychiatric Association [APA], 2013)
These results indicate that both groups had higher spontaneous entrainment when the pendulums were the same rather than different, that both the groups demonstrated spontaneous entrainment during the looking condition and that ASD pairs had less spontaneous entrainment than the control pairs across all trial segments
The findings reported here indicate that adolescents with ASD demonstrated a disruption of both spontaneous synchronization and intentional synchronization
Summary
Individuals with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) exhibit numerous impairments in social interaction that typically persist throughout adolescence and adulthood (Ballaban-Gil et al, 1996; Howlin et al, 2004; Billstedt et al, 2005; Eaves and Ho, 2008; American Psychiatric Association [APA], 2013). These deficits impact mental and physical development, learning, and behavioral functioning across settings and are the main reason that even high functioning individuals have difficulty contributing to the workforce in adulthood (Arnett, 2000; Howlin et al, 2004).
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