Articulatory Entrainment and Coordination Complexity in Spontaneous Autistic and Non-autistic Dialogue

Abstract:Articulatory entrainment, the adaptation of vocal tract coordination to facilitate interaction remains underexplored in spontaneous dialogue, particularly among autistic speakers. Many prior studies have utilized task-based, phoneme-level analyses with invasive measurement techniques. Here, we introduce a speaker-independent framework to quantify articulatory entrainment in spontaneous dyadic conversations among autistic and non-autistic adults using acoustic-to-articulatory inversion and coordination complexity metrics. We examine temporal changes in articulatory coordination across interaction. Non-autistic dyads exhibit increasing coordination complexity and stronger entrainment over time, autistic dyads show moderate effects, and mixed dyads demonstrate the least alignment. Greater articulatory entrainment correlates with higher self-reported conversational success, indicating increase in coordination complexity as a marker of effective social interaction.

Machine Learning (cs.LG)

arXiv:2610.04071 [cs.LG]

(or arXiv:2610.04071v1 [cs.LG] for this version)

https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2610.04071 Focus to learn more arXiv-issued DOI via DataCite (pending registration)

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