Social consequences and specificity of intrapersonal dis-synchrony in autism and other disorders of social interaction

• Applicant: Professorin Christine M. Falter-Wagner, Ph.D.
• Subject Area: Personality Psychology, Clinical and Medical Psychology, Methodology
• Term: from 2017 to 2023
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 387494903

Intrapersonal synchrony as the temporal coordination of nonverbal signal within interacting individuals could be constitutive for the emergence of interpersonal coupling mechanisms and smooth interactions. Peculiar nonverbal communication is a core symptom of Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD) and our aim was to investigate if this translates into deviant intrapersonal coordination of gaze and gestures.Deploying a highly standardized interpersonal study setup with eye-tracking technique and precisely synchronized data from different modalities, we measured quantitative parameters of nonverbal behaviour in individuals with ASD during real interactions. Results revealed empirical evidence for the production of larger and more variable temporal coupling windows between gaze and its accompanying gestures in individuals with ASD. We could not find evidence for a link of intrapersonal synchrony measures and sensorimotor timing performance assessed by a tapping task. Additionally, we did not find group differences in spatial properties of the gestures, measured by a newly developed frame-differencing algorithm. In two follow-up studies that we are currently developing, we aim to test if the perception of intrapersonal dis-synchrony affects the communicative effect of nonverbal signals and impression formation.Within this continuation proposal, we build up on our achievements and argue that there is research lacking in order to investigate specificity of effects that we found in individuals ASD. This is especially important regarding high rates of comorbidity in ASD and a symptomatic overlap with other psychopathologies. In line with this, we suggest to investigate intrapersonal synchrony in individuals with schizophrenia as well as in individuals with depression. All three psychiatric groups (i.e. ASD, schizophrenia, and depression) share impairments in the social and communicative domain, but still each group delineates by distinct symptomatology. Including these psychiatric groups, we will be able to infer potential underlying mechanisms of intrapersonal dis-synchrony, its specificity to ASD and thus its potential use in differential diagnostics.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants