I came across an interesting paper a few weeks ago that looked to investigate how some form of behavioural mirroring can positively affect the expressed feelings of empathy in adults with high-functioning autism (HFA). Below I have reproduced some extracts from the paper's abstract (and I have enbold-ed the 2 most important bits). The paper is:
The effect of being imitated on empathy for pain in adults with high-functioning autism: Disturbed self–other distinction leads to altered empathic responding
by De Coster, Wiersema, Deschrijver & Brass (2017) in 'Autism', 22 (6), 712-727.
'Autism spectrum disorder is a neurodevelopmental disorder that is associated with problems in empathy. Recent research suggests that impaired control over self–other overlap based on motor representations in individuals with autism spectrum disorder might underlie these difficulties. In order to investigate the relationship of self–other distinction and empathy for pain in high-functioning autism and matched controls, we manipulated self–other distinction by using a paradigm in which participants are either imitated or not by a hand on a computer screen. A strong pain stimulus is then inflicted on the observed hand.'
'Behavioral and physiological results in this study showed that overall affective responses while watching pain movies were the same in adults with high-functioning autism as in controls. Furthermore, controls showed higher affective responding after being imitated during the whole experiment, replicating previous studies. Adults with high-functioning autism, however, showed increased empathic responses over time after being imitated. Further exploratory analyses suggested that while affective responding was initially lower after being imitated compared to not being imitated, affective responding in the latter part of the experiment was higher after being imitated. These results shed new light on empathic abilities in high-functioning autism and on the role of control over self–other representational sharing.'
Now this very carefully controlled study, with all its dense and at times difficult to understand language ('self–other overlap' and/or 'self–other representational sharing' anybody?), is non-the-less really interesting.
Although obviously much more research is required in this area, this study seems to be suggesting that by deliberately imitating some aspect of the behaviour of a person with high-functioning autism over an extended period of time ('secondary analyses showed that the effect of imitation was strongly modulated by time'), and thus being in some way visibly more like the person with high-functioning autism, we enable them to be more empathetic to our condition and our potential feelings or emotions.
In this study the 'imitation' was somewhat contrived using a videoed picture of a hand being somehow hurt (yes I know, it sounds a bit of a CGI lab-rattish nightmare doesn't it), but even then ...
'Adults with HFA showed an increase of empathic responding over time in an imitation condition and a decrease over time in a non-imitation condition.'
... but imagine if we took this out of the white-coated laboratory conditions; yes, imagine the extra empathic effects that might have accrued if it had been a real human being, doing real Intensive Interaction, and creating real two-way empathic communication?
Although obviously much more research is required in this area, this study seems to be suggesting that by deliberately imitating some aspect of the behaviour of a person with high-functioning autism over an extended period of time ('secondary analyses showed that the effect of imitation was strongly modulated by time'), and thus being in some way visibly more like the person with high-functioning autism, we enable them to be more empathetic to our condition and our potential feelings or emotions.
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