Language disorganization shapes social judgement and relates to autistic traits

Disorganized language is assumed to contribute to deficits in the ability to navigate social interactions in individuals with mental disorders. Yet, an understanding of how exactly disorganized language might contribute to unsuccessful social interactions – and ultimately social impairment – has been lacking. The goal of the present study was to investigate whether language disorganization during naturalistic interactions predicts subsequent social judgements and behavior. To this end, 50 dyads of healthy participants engaged in spontaneous conversations which were audiotaped and analyzed using natural language processing (NLP) methods to assess different readouts of language disorganization. As indices of interlocutors’ social responses participants rated the level of interpersonal closeness and sympathy for the interlocutor, and were asked to split a sum of money between themselves and their interlocutor. Furthermore, participants completed measures related to autistic traits, social interaction anxiety, depression, and stress. Individuals whose speech was more predictable and more sensitive to conversational context elicited greater feelings of interpersonal closeness in others. Autistic traits were associated with lower levels of speech coherence as indicated by loose semantic associations of words. Our findings offer novel insights into the role of language disorganization for the formation of social bonds.