Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2022 Mar 1;4(1):3-11.
doi: 10.1089/aut.2021.0017. Epub 2022 Mar 9.

Investigating Markers of Rapport in Autistic and Nonautistic Interactions

Olivia M Rifai  1 , Sue Fletcher-Watson  2 , Lorena Jiménez-Sánchez  1 , Catherine J Crompton  2   3
Affiliations

Investigating Markers of Rapport in Autistic and Nonautistic Interactions

Olivia M Rifai et al. Autism Adulthood. .

Abstract

Background: Autism is considered to entail a social impairment whereby autistic people experience difficulty interpreting others' mental states. However, recent research has shown that nonautistic people also have difficulty understanding the mental states of autistic people. This mismatch of understanding may explain lower rapport in interactions between autistic and nonautistic people. As mental states can be expressed externally through socially normed signals, it is important to investigate the role of such signals in autistic, nonautistic, and mixed interactions. This study explores variability in two social signals between autistic, nonautistic, and mixed interactions, and how their use may affect rapport within interactions.

Methods: Videos from a previous study of autistic, nonautistic, and mixed pair interactions in a diffusion chain context in which participants were aware of others' diagnostic status were video coded for mutual gaze and backchanneling as candidate indicators of interactional rapport.

Results: Although use of mutual gaze and backchanneling was lower in mixed pairs than in nonautistic pairs, corresponding to lower ratings of interactional rapport, less backchanneling in autistic pairs of both nonverbal and verbal subtypes corresponded to higher ratings of rapport.

Conclusions: We observed differences in the use of candidate rapport markers between autistic, mixed, and nonautistic interactions, which did not map onto patterns of rapport scores, suggesting differences in reliance on these cues between autistic and nonautistic people. These results suggest that visible markers of rapport may vary by neurotype or pairing and give clues to inform future investigations of autistic interaction.

Keywords: autism; backchanneling; double empathy; mutual gaze; naturalistic communication; video coding.

Plain language summary

Why is this an important issue?: When someone is autistic, society generally assumes they have difficulty interacting with others. Social difficulties between autistic and nonautistic people are thought to be due to the autistic person not being able to interact using nonautistic social behaviors. This belief can lead to many autistic people feeling alienated. However, recent research supports what autistic people have been saying for a long time: that autistic people are capable of having successful and rewarding interactions with other autistic people. This suggests that social difficulties between autistic and nonautistic people may be due to a mismatch in social norms leading to difficulty for both people, not just the autistic person.

What was the purpose of this study?: In this study, we wanted to investigate whether certain social signals are used differently between autistic and nonautistic people. We also questioned whether using these signals helped or hurt the interaction depending on who was involved.

What did the researchers do?: We recorded people passing a story down a chain of people, like the game telephone, to see how they interacted with each other. Afterward, people wrote down scores for how much they enjoyed their interaction. We focused on two parts of the interaction: how much people were looking at each other and when they made short verbal responses such as “mhm” to show they were listening (backchanneling). We watched the recordings back and analyzed how long or how many times these actions were occurring.

What were the results of the study?: We found that when one autistic and one nonautistic person were interacting, they looked at each other and backchanneled less than two nonautistic people. This seemed to be linked with a less enjoyable interaction for them. However, backchanneling seemed to matter less in interactions between two autistic people. They backchanneled less while still having enjoyable interactions.

What do these findings add to what was already known?: Research has previously suggested that different social norms exist between autistic and nonautistic people. This study shows specific examples of this and how they may affect the interaction in a natural setting.

What are potential weaknesses in the study?: This study has some weaknesses. For example, we measured when people looked at each other's faces rather than eye contact specifically, which can only be done with an eye tracker. Also, the people in the study knew whether the person they were talking to was autistic. This can be similar to normal life, as people do sometimes know this, although we would also be interested to see what the effect of not knowing would be.

How will these findings help autistic adults now or in the future?: This line of research has important implications for how autistic people can be supported in society. Not only will understanding of social differences between autistic and nonautistic people help the way autistic people are perceived, but it will also help nonautistic people better understand and support the autistic people in their lives.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

No competing financial interests exist.

Figures

FIG. 1.
FIG. 1.
Mutual gaze and backchanneling levels in nonautistic, mixed, and autistic pairs. (a–d) Mean and individual values shown by pair type for (a) mutual gaze duration %, (b) total backchanneling rate, (c) nonverbal backchanneling rate, and (d) verbal backchanneling rate (*p < 0.05, **p < 0.01).
FIG. 2.
FIG. 2.
Summary of results across pair types. Mutual gaze duration % and backchanneling rate are indicated as high in nonautistic pairs with upward arrows. In mixed and autistic pairs a downward arrow indicates lower use of a particular signal compared with nonautistic pairs, whereas a dash indicates no significant difference.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

Similar articles

See all similar articles

Cited by

See all "Cited by" articles

References

    1. American Psychiatric Association. Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. 5th ed, Arlington, VA. 2013.
    1. Rajendran G, Mitchell P. Cognitive theories of autism. Dev Rev. 2007;27(2):224–260. DOI: 10.1016/j.dr.2007.02.001. - DOI
    1. Baron-Cohen S, Leslie AM, Frith U. Does the autistic child have a “theory of mind”? Cognition. 1985;21(1):37–46. DOI: 10.1016/0010-0277(85)90022-8. - DOI - PubMed
    1. Baron-Cohen S, Jolliffe T, Mortimore C, Robertson M. Another advanced test of theory of mind: Evidence from very high functioning adults with autism or Asperger syndrome. J Child Psychol Psychiatry. 1997;38(7):813–822. DOI: 10.1111/j.1469-7610.1997.tb01599.x. - DOI - PubMed
    1. Gernsbacher MA, Yergeau M. Empirical failures of the claim that autistic people lack a theory of mind. Arch Sci Psychol. 2019;7(1):102–118. DOI: 10.1037/arc0000067. - DOI - PMC - PubMed