Beyond Autism: Introducing the Dialectical Misattunement Hypothesis and a Bayesian Account of Intersubjectivity

“This aligns with prior work on the dialectical misattunement hypothesis and theory of double empathy, which suggest that people with different experiences will have dif fi culty interacting with and empathizing with each other (Bolis et al., 2018; Milton, 2012).”

“L’intérêt de telles modélisations serait de pouvoir intégrer l’échelle sociale et les processus d’internalisation des normes chez les patients et la construction dialectique des représentations de leurs symptômes [5] dans le cadre d’une approche socio-constructiviste qui ne néglige pas l’apport des neurosciences, enje…”

“This finding contributes to the assumption that core phe - notypic symptoms of autism, like insistence on sameness and repetitive behavior, derive from compromised predic - tion skills that may be particularly important during social interactions (Bolis et al., 2017 ; Sinha et al., 2014 ).”

“These findings support the theoretical explanation that communication and interaction difficulties are not attributable to autistic social cognitive deficits, but rather stem from a mismatch between autistic and non-autistic cognitive and behavioral styles (Bolis et al., 2017; Milton, 2012).”

“…social aspects of the condition, overlooking how language is actually used in communication (Bambini et al., 2016; Mueser et al., 1991: also in relation to autism, Bolis et al., 2017; for a recent manifesto placing interaction at the heart of language and cognition see Dingemanse et al., (2023).”

“Studies of communication between pairs of autistic and non-autistic people suggest social exchanges may feel disconnected or less fluid than between two people of the same neurotype (Sasson et al., 2017; Bolis et al., 2018; Heasman and Gillespie, 2019; Crompton et al., 2020).”

“Like DET DMH rejects individual deficit-based explanations of various psychiatric and developmental conditions, instead reframing them as a mismatch of interpersonal dynamics (Bolis et al. 2017).”

“The self ‘cannot be understood in isolation from society, the body, and social interaction’ (Bolis et al. 2017, 356), as it is dialectically produced.”

“Attempts have been made to go beyond visuospatial interaction and eye gaze, to study interacting bodies (Schilbach, 2016; Bolis et al., 2017; Zapata-Fonseca et al., 2018).”

“In our own work, we have consequently suggested to provide a neurobiologically-oriented, integrative framework for social interactions that relies on the predictive coding account and has been referred to as the social interaction mismatch or dialectical misattunement hypothesis 2 .”

“Both in TD and ASD, synchrony could be influenced not only by individual characteristics but also by how these align interpersonally 15,17–19 .”

“In particular, such models allow us to test the dialectical misattunement hypothesis (Bolis et al., 2017), which posits that psychiatric risk arises not from individual deficits alone but from persistent mismatches in communicative expectations or learning rates.”

“…individuals struggle to read autistic people’s emotional expressions [89, 90], and aligns with predictions made by mismatch theories [14, 16], that non-autistic people struggle to understand autistic people in the same way as autistic people have difficulties understanding their…”

“Interestingly, through a PP lens autism can be seen as a different predictive and (inter-)action style, as opposed to disordered brain function per se (Bolis et al., 2017).”

“1 3 psychophysiological and sociocultural) unfolding over different time frames (e.g., evolutionary, cultural, developmental, psychophysiological and microbiological scales; Vygotsky 1930–1935/1978; Bolis et al. 2017).”

“The dialectical misattunement hypothesis 32 articulates a compelling mechanism for the DEP by proposing that autistic and non-autistic individuals may rely on divergent predictive processing and inference styles.”

“Emerging perspectives, such as the double empathy theory 67 and the social interaction mismatch hypothesis 9 , challenge the traditional view that social difficulties in autism stem solely from intrinsic deficits.”

“As explained by the dialectical misattunement hypothesis, autism may not be a disordered function of individual brains but a mismatch of interpersonal dynamics 50 .”

“One reason this could be is that there is misalignment in methods that are being used to establish mutual awareness, and therefore expectations of what an engagement should constitute (Bolis et al., 2018).”

“…which lead autistic individuals to perceive social interactions as unpredictable, cause interactive mismatch (i.e., interactions in which behaviors and expectations of individuals involved do not align), and create stress (Bolis et al., 2017; Pellicano & Burr, 2012; Sinha et al., 2014).”

“A third, more recent theory, known as the dialectical misattunement hypothesis, 27 states that differences in autistic gaze may arise from interactive and dynamic mismatches between individuals.”

“At the same time, thinking of interpersonal coordination as a two-person “problem” (Bolis et al., 2018; Schilbach, 2016) and within the framing of interpersonal differences as relating to our ability to connect with one another (Milton, 2012; Milton et al., 2022) suggests that we should consider…”

“Practically, these insights could inform targeted interventions, particularly social power behavior training, to enhance social competence and strengthen social connections for autistic individuals with social anxiety.”

“…relevant: rather than focusing exclusively on increasing overt social behaviors, interventions might also support the micro-temporal adjustment processes through which interpersonal timing becomes more finely tuned during ongoing interaction (Bolis et al., 2018; McNaughton and Redcay, 2020).”

“These include a similar ability to predict the interaction (Bolis et al., 2017) or even certain preferred sensory environments leading to proximity, which influence friendship ties by propinquity.”

“Furthermore, by relying less on cognitive predictions, autistic individuals may experience the social world as more unpredictable than non-autistic individuals, which can lead to stressful and overwhelming experiences in social interaction (Bolis et al., 2017).”

“…pivotal in revealing how social difficulties often emerge from mismatched expectations and communicative styles between autistic and non-autistic individuals, rather than from deficits in one party alone [ 2, 3]. formal account of how interacting agents generate, update, and align expectations.”

“…that IPS may hold differing social signi fi cance across neurotypes (Bowsher-Murray et al., 2022), such that differences in IPS are better characterised as re fl ecting differing communication styles (Milton, 2012; Morrison et al., 2020) or ‘ mis-attunement ’ (Bolis et al., 2018) between neurotypes.”

“Most prior research in this field has adopted social observation and imagination task, such as passively viewing picture and/or videos, or reading hypothetical vignettes 62–64 .”

“Theories and Mechanisms Recent discussions have focused on the double-empathy theory (e.g., Milton, 2012; Bolis et al., 2017; but see Georgescu et al., 2020), which interprets communication “difficulties” associated with autism as a bidirectional breakdown between two interaction partners.”

“Following Bolis et al. (2017), some of the resulting difficulties might be best understood at the intersubjective level, with two parties in a conversation unable to communicate on the same terms.”

“Similarly, Bolis et al. (2017) drew upon a combination of socio-cultural theories and Bayesian accounts to argue that consideration of psychiatric and neurological differences need to move beyond individualistic accounts and need to instead be considered as a dynamic interpersonal mismatch,…”