Differences in the production and perception of communicative kinematics in autism

This publication is included in the Autistic Autism Scholarship Project. one author of this publication is identified as autistic in the project.

About the autistic author marker

Trujillo, J. P., Özyürek, A., Kan, C. C., Sheftel-Simanova, I., & Bekkering, H. (2021). Differences in the production and perception of communicative kinematics in autism. Autism Research, 14(12), 2640-2653. https://doi.org/10.1002/aur.2611

Publication date: 18 Sep 2021 Added to AutiHub: 18 Oct 2026 Type: Article Article language: English

This publication is integrated into AutiHub through:

Authors

Publication authors
5
Publication authors identified as autistic
1 / 5 (20.0%)

Abstract

Abstract In human communication, social intentions and meaning are often revealed in the way we move. In this study, we investigate the flexibility of human communication in terms of kinematic modulation in a clinical population, namely, autistic individuals. The aim of this study was twofold: to assess (a) whether communicatively relevant kinematic features of gestures differ between autistic and neurotypical individuals, and (b) if autistic individuals use communicative kinematic modulation to support gesture recognition. We tested autistic and neurotypical individuals on a silent gesture production task and a gesture comprehension task. We measured movement during the gesture production task using a Kinect motion tracking device in order to determine if autistic individuals differed from neurotypical individuals in their gesture kinematics. For the gesture comprehension task, we assessed whether autistic individuals used communicatively relevant kinematic cues to support recognition. This was done by using stick‐light figures as stimuli and testing for a correlation between the kinematics of these videos and recognition performance. We found that (a) silent gestures produced by autistic and neurotypical individuals differ in communicatively relevant kinematic features, such as the number of meaningful holds between movements, and (b) while autistic individuals are overall unimpaired at recognizing gestures, they processed repetition and complexity, measured as the amount of submovements perceived, differently than neurotypicals do. These findings highlight how subtle aspects of neurotypical behavior can be experienced differently by autistic individuals. They further demonstrate the relationship between movement kinematics and social interaction in high‐functioning autistic individuals. Lay Summary Hand gestures are an important part of how we communicate, and the way that we move when gesturing can influence how easy a gesture is to understand. We studied how autistic and typical individuals produce and recognize hand gestures, and how this relates to movement characteristics. We found that autistic individuals moved differently when gesturing compared to typical individuals. In addition, while autistic individuals were not worse at recognizing gestures, they differed from typical individuals in how they interpreted certain movement characteristics.

Bibliography cited by this reference

Cited references are imported from external metadata sources when they are available. The list may be partial.

Cited bibliography overview

These indicators describe the bibliography cited by this publication. An author name is counted each time it appears in one cited reference, so the same person can be counted more than once. Names not yet linked to an author already present in AutiHub are treated as unknown, not as non-autistic. Last computed: 28 Oct 2026 01:01.

Cited references
66
With a DOI
61
Without a DOI, from raw bibliography text
5
6 / 66 (9.1%) cited references include at least one author identified as autistic.
References with data to complete
4 / 66 (6.1%)
References with detected author names
62 / 66 (93.9%)
Without detected author names
4
Without a structured title
3
Without a stable identifier
4
References with raw author names still to review
2
References with external metadata lookup issues
2
These indicators apply to cited references displayed on this page, after technical duplicates have been merged. A reference without a DOI can still support author statistics when a title and author names are available.
Author names detected in the cited bibliography
249
From DOI or external metadata
249
From validated raw bibliography text
0
Raw names already validated
0
Raw names still to review
2
56 / 249 (22.5%) names are linked to an author already present in AutiHub. 193 / 249 (77.5%) names are not yet linked.
Names linked to a person identified as autistic
6 / 249 (2.4%)
Calculated across all author names detected in the cited bibliography. Among names linked to an author already present in AutiHub: 6 / 56 (10.7%). Distinct people identified as autistic: 2 / 221 (0.9%).
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