Interpersonal Adjustment as An Account for Communication Challenges Among Individuals with High and Low Autistic Traits

Communication difficulties are often attributed to social cognitive deficits in autistic individuals, yet the Double Empathy Problem (DEP) proposes that breakdowns arise from reciprocal interpersonal mismatch. Despite its growing influence, DEP has lacked a formal operationalization enabling direct empirical evaluation. Here we develop a framework grounded in a constructivist account of communication that distinguishes global autistic-trait differences within dyads from local, moment-to-moment adjustment of mental states during interaction. We test this framework in 152 participants forming dyads varying in autistic-trait similarity (low-low, low-high, high-high) who completed a real-time conceptual coordination task requiring the emergence of novel signaling systems. Mixed-trait dyads exhibited reduced interpersonal adjustment, increased signaling variability, and more heterogeneous coordination dynamics compared with matched-trait dyads. Interpersonal adjustment positively predicted joint correctness, subjective experience of the interaction, and willingness for future interaction, and statistically accounted for the association between trait differences and coordination outcomes. These findings operationalize the Double Empathy Problem and suggest that continuous accommodation of mental states during interaction is a mechanism through which individual differences shape communication outcomes. More broadly, the framework provides an empirical approach for studying communicative accommodation across a wide range of social and cultural contexts characterized by substantial interpersonal differences.