Subclinical variation in mental health shapes the dynamics of everyday behaviour

Everyday behaviour is comprised of myriad components that must be seamlessly coordinatedfor action to be effective. Individual differences, specifically variation in mental healthsymptoms, influence how this challenge is navigated, however their impact in naturalisticsettings remains unclear. Adopting a dynamical systems perspective, here we examinedwhether subclinical variation in symptoms associated with social anxiety disorder (SAD) andautism spectrum disorder (ASD) modulate individual movement dynamics during an everydayactivity – walking on a university campus. Participants (n = 93) completed two walking trials,the second of which included an additional distractor task that they were either told to ignoreor attend to. Gait dynamics were captured unobtrusively and assessed at both local (i.e.,moment-to-moment) and global (i.e., time invariant) levels. The results revealed thatsubclinical variation symptoms of ASD were associated with less stable local dynamics,independent of task context. Further, exploratory analyses suggested that instructions to ignorethe distractor were potentially associated with changes to local dynamics for symptoms ofSAD, but global dynamics for symptoms of ASD. Taken together, these findings highlight howindividual differences in psychological factors can shape the dynamics of everyday behaviourin context-dependent ways.