Socio-emotional synchrony in social interactions: the impact of partner neurotype

成为一个成功的社会领航员，有赖于社会关系的形成和维持；从建立持久的友谊到在董事会中成为一个熟练的调解人。个人之间人际关系的改善会增加对未来交往的兴趣（克朗普顿…）& Ropar, 2020)，更大的情感共鸣（即情感上的“同步”）可以提高关系强度（Brown et al., 2022）并促进亲社会行为（West et al., 2021）。此外，一个人在表达自己时的身体动作，以及这是否与他们的互动伙伴一致，在社交交流中起着重要作用（Cook, 2016; Sowden et al.,2021）。最近，神经多样性对这种社会情感体验的影响引起了人们的兴趣。事实上，尽管自闭症个体在与非自闭症同伴交往时试图掩饰或“隐藏”他们的自闭症特征，但跨神经类型的人际交往（在自闭症个体和非自闭症个体之间）比同神经类型的人际交往（自闭症/自闭症或非自闭症/非自闭症配对）更具挑战性。这包括信息传递（Crompton, Ropar, et al., 2020），社会理解（Crompton, Hallett, et al., 2020）和人际关系融洽(Crompton…& Ropar, 2020)。鉴于人们越来越重视在工作场所和教育环境中支持神经多样性（例如，gov.uk和国家自闭症协会），调查神经类型之间和内部成功社会互动的障碍和促进因素是及时的。Milton（2012）提出的概念“双重共情问题”描述了这种双向的社会理解困难。然而，目前的研究未能解释为什么同一神经类型的相互作用更有效。该项目将通过设计和测试个人之间社会情感同步的具体实验措施，确定有助于改善/恶化关系的因素。这将在三个测量水平上进行索引：1)体验（例如，情感主观体验的同步性）；2)行为（如非语言表达的同步性）和3)身体（如觉醒水平的同步性）。

Being a successful navigator of the social world relies on forming and maintaining social relationships; from building lasting friendships to being a skilled mediator in the boardroom. Improved interpersonal rapport between individuals leads to increased interest in future interaction(Crompton...& Ropar, 2020), and greater emotional resonance (i.e., being emotionally 'in sync') with others improves relationship strength(Brown et al., 2022) and promotes prosocial behaviour (West et al., 2021). Additionally, one's body movement when expressing themselves and whether this is congruent with their interaction partner has an important role in social communication (Cook, 2016; Sowden et al.,2021).Recently, the impact of neurodiversity on such socio-emotional experiences has gained interest. Indeed, despite attempts made by autistic individuals to camouflage or 'hide' their autistic traits when interacting with non-autistic peers, cross-neurotype interpersonal interactions (between autistic and non-autistic individuals) are more challenging than same-neurotype interactions (autistic/autistic or non-autistic/non autistic pairs). This includes poorer effectiveness of information transfer (Crompton, Ropar, et al., 2020), social understanding (Crompton, Hallett, et al., 2020) and interpersonal rapport (Crompton...& Ropar,2020). Given growing emphasis on supporting neurodiversity in workplace and education settings (e.g., gov.uk and National Autistic Society), it is timely to investigate barriers and facilitators to successful social interaction between and within neurotypes. The 'double empathy problem', a concept proposed by Milton (2012), describes such bi-directional social understanding difficulties. However, current research fails to explain why same-neurotype interactions are more effective. This project will identify factors contributing to better/worse rapport by designing and testing concrete experimental measures of socio-emotional synchrony between individuals. This will be indexed across three levels of measurement: 1) Experiential (e.g., synchrony in subjective experiences of emotion); 2) Behavioural (e.g., non-verbal expression synchrony) and 3) Bodily (e.g., synchrony in arousal levels).