Social consequences and specificity of intrapersonal dis-synchrony in autism and other disorders of social interaction
Final Report Abstract
Abnormalities in social interaction and communication are core symptoms of autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Functional social interaction is based on well-coordinated communication between individuals, which can be conceptualized and measured as interpersonal synchrony. As a basis for that, the current research program examined intrapersonal synchrony, that is, the temporal coordination of communication channels of the individual participant interacting with another person. To this end, we examined deviations in intrapersonal coordination of gaze and gestures and their effects on communication efficiency and impression formation in the counterpart. Although the project focused on intrapersonal processes, intrapersonal synchrony was measured and tested within interaction scenarios, so the dyad was an essential component of the research. Intrapersonal synchrony can thus be seen as a foundation for interpersonal processes. The results of the project provide important evidence that not only the production but also the perception of, and thus the response to, intrapersonal dys-synchrony manifests differently at the temporal level in individuals with and without ASD. These results improve our understanding of reduced reciprocity and reduced interpersonal synchrony in ASD. Taken together, the results of this project contribute to a better understanding and description of communicative behavior in adults with ASD and thus to the establishment of objective diagnostic markers in the long term. The dyssynchrony between gaze and gesture in individuals with ASD that we found in Study 1 and which was in keeping with our hypothesis, is consistent with similar previous findings from adolescence and may be transferable to combinations of other communication channels (e.g., speech and gaze). Furthermore, the results of this project provide important insights into the relationship between non-social sensory-motor processes with social-communicative processes in ASD. Investigating connections between social and non-social processes seems essential given the recent addition of sensory abnormalities to the diagnostic symptoms description of ASD. The fact that synchronization behavior in individuals with ASD is differentiated in social and non-social domains contrasts with a cross-domain synchronization style in non-autistic individuals and raises the question for follow-up studies of whether and how the associations between atypical sensory processing and communication behavior change across ontogeny.
Publications
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INTRApersonal Synchrony as Constituent of INTERpersonal Synchrony and Its Relevance for Autism Spectrum Disorder. Frontiers in Robotics and AI, 6.
Bloch, Carola; Vogeley, Kai; Georgescu, Alexandra L. & Falter-Wagner, Christine M.
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Machine Learning to Study Social Interaction Difficulties in ASD. Frontiers in Robotics and AI, 6.
Georgescu, Alexandra Livia; Koehler, Jana Christina; Weiske, Johanna; Vogeley, Kai; Koutsouleris, Nikolaos & Falter-Wagner, Christine
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Reduced nonverbal interpersonal synchrony in autism spectrum disorder independent of partner diagnosis: a motion energy study. Molecular Autism, 11(1).
Georgescu, A. L.; Koeroglu, S.; Hamilton, A. F. de C.; Vogeley, K.; Falter-Wagner, C. M. & Tschacher, W.
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Brief Report: Specificity of Interpersonal Synchrony Deficits to Autism Spectrum Disorder and Its Potential for Digitally Assisted Diagnostics. Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, 52(8), 3718-3726.
Koehler, Jana Christina; Georgescu, Alexandra Livia; Weiske, Johanna; Spangemacher, Moritz; Burghof, Lana; Falkai, Peter; Koutsouleris, Nikolaos; Tschacher, Wolfgang; Vogeley, Kai & Falter-Wagner, Christine M.
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Intrapersonal synchrony analysis reveals a weaker temporal coherence between gaze and gestures in adults with autism spectrum disorder. Scientific Reports, 12(1).
Bloch, Carola; Tepest, Ralf; Jording, Mathis; Vogeley, Kai & Falter-Wagner, Christine M.
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Differentiated, rather than shared, strategies for time-coordinated action in social and non-social domains in autistic individuals. Cortex, 166, 207-232.
Bloch, Carola; Viswanathan, Shivakumar; Tepest, Ralf; Jording, Mathis; Falter-Wagner, Christine M. & Vogeley, Kai
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Interacting with autistic virtual characters: Intrapersonal synchrony of nonverbal behavior influences participants' perception. Center for Open Science.
Bloch, Carola; Tepest, Ralf; Koeroglu, Sevim; Feikes, Kyra Isabel; Jording, Mathis; Vogeley, Kai & Falter-Wagner, Christine
