• Citer

Investigating the effect of neurotype-matching on communication efficiency and first impressions of verbal interactions of autistic and non-autistic adults

par Geelhand, Philippine ;Papastamou, Fanny ;Kissine, Mikhail
Référence ITAKOM (13-14/03/2023: Edinburgh International Conference Centre)
Publication Non publié, 2023-03-14

Poster de conférence

• Détails
• Contenu

Résumé :

More and more studies show that neurotype mismatching (e.g., autistic-non-autistic pairing) rather than being autistic leads to interaction difficulties in autism. This study further tests this assumption by investigating communication efficiency and first impressions of verbal interactions across three dyad types (autistic, non-autistic and mixed (autistic-non-autistic) dyads). To address this aim, we used an online version of the Director Task (DT) - a task in which dyads need to organize unlexicalized images in a specific order across several turns. To do so, they need to create novel referential expressions for these images. Dyad members communicate about these images across several rounds, prompting them to negotiate shorter descriptions and therefore taking less time to complete a round. The DT thus provides objective measures of conversation outcome which can then be related to more subjective measures (ratings). Following the DT, dyads engaged in an unstructured, get-to-know-you task. Afterwards, they rated each other’s discourse abilities (coherence, fluidity & efficiency), interaction quality and likelihood to hang out. Preliminary results from fifty-two dyads (23 non-autistic dyads/16 autistic dyads/12 mixed dyads) indicate that turn duration and expression length decreased for all dyad types, suggesting that all dyads became increasingly efficient as the task proceeded. Furthermore, during the DT, perceived discourse coherence, fluidity & efficiency did not differ across dyads. However, during the get-to-know-you task, in non-autistic dyads, ratings of coherence and fluidity were higher than in autistic and mixed dyads. Finally, in mixed dyads, ratings of likelihood to hang out were lower than those in same-neurotype dyads. These results suggest that neurotype mismatching does not influence impressions of the discourse and interaction quality but does seem to influence future behavioural intentions (e.g., likelihood to hang out). This study will help us better understand interactional dynamics between different neurotypes, and how these can influence future interactions with autistic people.