Sensitivity to Social Contingency in Adults with High-Functioning Autism during Computer-Mediated Embodied Interaction

Abstract

Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) can be understood as a social interaction disorder. This makes the emerging “second-person approach” to social cognition a more promising framework for studying ASD than classical approaches focusing on mindreading capacities in detached, observer-based arrangements. According to the second-person approach, embodied, perceptual, and embedded or interactive capabilities are also required for understanding others, and these are hypothesized to be compromised in ASD. We therefore recorded the dynamics of real-time sensorimotor interaction in pairs of control participants and participants with High-Functioning Autism (HFA), using the minimalistic human-computer interface paradigm known as “perceptual crossing” (PC). We investigated whether HFA is associated with impaired detection of social contingency, i.e., a reduced sensitivity to the other’s responsiveness to one’s own behavior. Surprisingly, our analysis reveals that, at least under the conditions of this highly simplified, computer-mediated, embodied form of social interaction, people with HFA perform equally well as controls. This finding supports the increasing use of virtual reality interfaces for helping people with ASD to better compensate for their social disabilities. Further dynamical analyses are necessary for a better understanding of the mechanisms that are leading to the somewhat surprising results here obtained.

Investigating real-time social interaction in pairs of adolescents with the Perceptual Crossing Experiment

“…Our findings in random pairs from the general population showed that time spent together did not change per round, indicating that participants kept exploring the space rather than increasingly staying with the other avatar. In contrast, Zapata-Fonseca et al (2018) found controls to decrease their exploring behavior in interaction with individuals with autism spectrum disorder. This may also be explained by the difference in age, with an adult population more easily reaching a decision and sticking to what they think is the other person.…”

“…Indeed, our correct detection rate in adolescents was lower compared with adults. Further, Zapata-Fonseca et al (2018) have shown that click correctness did not distinguish participants with high functioning autism from controls, while interaction patterns differed. Potential ambiguity in the interpretation of quantitative findings could be solved by including a qualitative aspect and comparing this with the quantitative findings (Froese et al, 2014).…”

“…Some authors have even argued on the basis of the PCE that social interaction may constitute social cognition (De Jaegher et al, 2010;Froese & Di Paolo, 2011). More recently, the PCE has also been shown to distinguish interaction patterns, measured as the amount and variability of movement towards each other, in individuals with highfunctioning autism from those in controls (Zapata-Fonseca et al, 2019;Zapata-Fonseca, Froese, Schilbach, Vogeley, & Timmermans, 2018). These studies, showing the ability to capture variability in capacities for social contingency detection in populations with impairments in social functioning, provided further evidence for the capacity of the PCE to investigate mechanisms of social interaction.…”

“…In adolescent populations and prospective longitudinal designs, the rather extensive PCE previously used in adultsfifteen rounds following a training phase, lasting up to one hour (e.g. Froese et al, 2014;Zapata-Fonseca et al, 2018) may benefit from a considerably shortened design. We therefore adapted and shortened the PCE to six rounds, and compared it with the original fifteen-round design with regard to the ability to assess the learning of social contingency detection.…”

Two-Person Approaches to Studying Social Interaction in Psychiatry: Uses and Clinical Relevance

“…In the study by Landa et al, toddlers with ASD were randomized to either a classroom-based inter-personal synchrony intervention (including imitation, joint attention, and affect sharing) or a non-inter-personal synchrony intervention. It was found that after approximately 200 hours of interpersonal synchrony interventions (versus non-interpersonal synchrony interventions), toddlers showed enhanced socially engaged imitations paired with eye contact with the examiner and demonstrated a trend toward higher levels of nonverbal cognition during posttest assessments (90). The study provided evidence for plasticity in these developmental systems in toddlers with ASD.…”