Abstract
BackgroundOne of the main diagnostic features of individuals with autism spectrum disorders is nonverbal behaviour difficulties during naturalistic social interactions. The ‘Interactional Heterogeneity Hypothesis’ of ASD proposes that the degree to which individuals share a common ground substantially influences their ability to achieve smooth social interactions.MethodsTo test this hypothesis, we filmed 29 autistic and 29 matched typically developed adults engaged in several conversational tasks. Windowed cross-lagged correlations were computed using the time series of motion energy of both individuals in a dyad. These coefficients were then compared across the three dyad types that were homo- or heterogenous with respect to diagnosis: pairs of two autistic individuals, two typically developed individuals or pairs of one autistic and one typically developed person.ResultsWe found that all dyad types achieved above-chance interpersonal synchrony, but that synchrony was more expressed in typical dyads compared to both autistic and mixed dyads.LimitationsThe method presented here provides only one, albeit objective and robust, approach to explore synchrony. The methodological choices as well as the lack of consideration for other communication modalities may limit our interpretation of the findings. Moreover, the sample size is small with respect to exploring associations between synchrony and various outcome and social skill measures.ConclusionsThe present results do not provide support for the Interactional Heterogeneity Hypothesis given that autistic individuals do not coordinate better when interacting with another autistic individual, compared to when interacting with a typical individual.
Highlights
One of the main diagnostic features of individuals with autism spectrum disorders is nonverbal behaviour difficulties during naturalistic social interactions
The present results do not provide support for the Interactional Heterogeneity Hypothesis given that autistic individuals do not coordinate better when interacting with another autistic individual, compared to when interacting with a typical individual
We found significant main effects of TASK in all dependent variables, and for the pleasantness of the interaction rating, we found a significant main effect of group (F(2,55) = 3.336, p < .05, ηp2 = 0.108) and a significant interaction effect for TASK x GROUP (F(5.827,160.248) = 2.683, p < .05, ηp2 = 0.089). This suggests that overall, the rating of the interactions with respect to pleasantness was similar across groups but that individuals from the TYPICAL dyads rated the island and cooperative interactions as significantly more pleasant compared to individuals from the other two dyad types
Summary
One of the main diagnostic features of individuals with autism spectrum disorders is nonverbal behaviour difficulties during naturalistic social interactions. It has been proposed that such difficulties may be attributable to an ‘Interactional Heterogeneity’ across persons, rather than solely to individual failure [5–8] This suggests that a breakdown in social interaction and mutual understanding can happen between people with very differing ways of processing and experiencing the world (ibid.). IPS may underlie interaction success because it can promote effective turn-taking, as well as connectedness, trust and prosocial behaviour [11, 19], and it can even predict the success of a problem-solving exercise, negotiation or meeting [20, 21]. It has been associated with various psychopathological conditions like schizophrenia [22, 23], social anxiety disorder [24] and borderline personality disorder [25]. We argue for an in-depth investigation of IPS in ASD, in order to understand its contribution to the social interaction problems characteristic of the condition
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