A Distinct Communication Strategies Model of the Double Empathy Problem

TL;DR

This paper introduces a mathematical feedback-loop model explaining the bidirectional empathy challenges between autistic and neurotypical individuals, based on communication preferences, and predicts interaction outcomes.

Contribution

It presents the first explicit mechanistic model of the double empathy problem, linking communication preferences to empathy breakdowns in dyadic interactions.

Findings

Model demonstrates empathy degradation due to communication preference differences.

Simulation results replicate clinical observations of empathy breakdown.

Stability analysis predicts interaction trajectories in empathy space.

Abstract

The double empathy problem recasts the difficulty of forming empathy bonds in social interactions between autistic and neurotypical individuals as a bidirectional problem, rather than due to a deficit exclusive to the person on the spectrum. However, no explicit mechanism to explain such a phenomenon has been proposed. Here we build a feedback-loop mathematical model that would theoretically induce the empathy degradation observed during communication in neurotypical-autistic pairs solely due to differences in communication preferences between neurotypical and neurodivergent individuals. Numerical simulations of dyadic interactions show the model, whose mechanism is based solely on communication preferences, can illustrate the breakdown of empathic bonding observed clinically. Stability analysis of the model provides a way to predict the overall trajectory of the interaction in the empathy space. Furthermore, we suggest experimental designs to measure several parameters outlined here and discuss the future directions for testing the proposed model.