Who clicks with whom? The emergent dynamics of social connection across neurotypes
Year: 2026
Type: preprint
Study design: Observational Study
Abstract: Social connection is often conceptualized as an individual competence, yet it fundamentally unfolds through dynamic coordination between people. To test what drives social connection across diverse interaction styles, we examined naturalistic conversations between autistic and non-autistic adults using a round-robin design. We combined multimodal behavioral tracking—spanning dozens of behaviors across facial expression, head movement, vocal prosody, and turn-taking—with dispositional profiling across same- and mixed-neurotype dyads. Non-autistic dyads reported higher rapport than mixed pairs. While individual dispositions (traits, states) shaped evaluations, non-verbal synchrony emerged as the sole behavioral predictor of rapport across all dyad types. In contrast, none of the individual behaviors were linked to connection. Autistic participants showed greater motivation to interact again with their partners. By demonstrating that rapport operates through interpersonal coordination even across contrasting communicative profiles of autistic and non-autistic adults, these findings establish that social connection is an emergent property of interacting minds.
Language: English
Subfield: Cognitive Neuroscience
Field: Neuroscience
Domain: Life Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W7223570021