Masterarbeit / Master's Thesis
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MASTERARBEIT / MASTER’S THESIS Titel der Masterarbeit / Title of the Master‘s Thesis “Evaluating the communication gap between enactivist theory, research, and human and robotic therapy addressing social interaction performance in persons on the autism spectrum” verfasst von / submitted by Elena Hîrjoabă Lic. angestrebter akademischer Grad / in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science (MSc) Wien, 2018/ Vienna, 2018 Studienkennzahl lt. Studienblatt / A 066 013 degree programme code as it appears on the student record sheet: Studienrichtung lt. Studienblatt / Joint Degree Programme MEi: CogSci Cognitive degree programme as it appears on the student Science UG2002 record sheet: Betreut von / Supervisor Univ.-Lektor Dipl.-Ing. Dr. Paolo Petta Abstract How do persons on the autism spectrum socially interact? Motivated by the documented theory-to- research-to-practice addressing Autism Spectrum Disorder and after a series of meetings with professionals in the field (i.e., cognitive science, philosophy, engineering), I aimed in this master thesis to analyze and review publications discussing characteristics of the social interaction competence of persons on the autism spectrum from the perspectives of theory (i.e., Participatory Sense-Making), research (i.e., studies addressing visual and motor and social interaction performance), and therapy (i.e., human and robot therapies). This work is meant to facilitate the scientific communication between practitioners, engineers, and academics studying Autism Spectrum Disorder, and to promote the view that Autism Spectrum Disorder is not necessarily a disability, but rather an atypical form of development. As a trained psychologist with one and a half years of experience in applying principles of Applied Behavioral Analysis to teaching skills to children on the autism spectrum, I take advantage of my professional hands- on background to review the scientific and therapeutic fields and to make suggestions for experts in the field also from the perspective of an interventionist. The present work is addressed at academics investigating Autism Spectrum Disorder (including philosophers, psychologists, and engineers) and interventionists interacting with persons on the autism spectrum. Among the paradigms in cognitive science, the cognitivist approach of Theory of Mind has led to argumentation for impaired mentalizing abilities of persons on the autism spectrum during social interaction, but this approach has been criticized for failing to capture the full “reality” of face-to-face social interaction. In contrast, the enactivist perspective on social interaction of Participatory Sense- Making hypothesizes a particular way of persons on the autism spectrum to socially coordinate and interact. Rather than on the particulars of states and transitions of the social interaction phenomenon, the enactivist framework focuses on the dynamics of movements and relationships and on the interaction rhythms characterizing the social unit formed by, e.g., a person on the autism spectrum and a person with typical development. The Participatory Sense-Making theory by De Jaegher (2013) hypothesizes that persons on the autism spectrum interact and make sense of the environment based on their ‘autistic’ embodiment. In an attempt to verify whether recent evidence confirms this hypothesis, I review publications from the field of Psychology that investigate the motor and visual perception processes of persons on the autism spectrum, the way they make sense of the environment, and characteristics of their social interaction competence. The evidence I reviewed is indicative of a possible construct of an ‘autistic’ embodiment influencing sense-making and social interaction. However, given the restricted number of publications covered in my ii review and further limitations identified within this selection, I cannot offer conclusive evidence for this hypothesis. Another finding of my review is that there seems to be a bidirectional relation between low- level processes (i.e., motor and sensory processes) and high-level processes (i.e., social interaction and language) in persons on the autism spectrum, but the nature of this relation is not definite. Another result of my literature review about the social interaction of persons on the autism spectrum is that they do actually coordinate and synchronize in their interactions with both, other persons and objects, but they do so differently than persons with typical development. Different human and robot therapies aim to teach and improve social skills to/of persons on the autism spectrum. The results indicate robot-mediated therapy to be more efficient than human therapy in teaching social skills to children on the autism spectrum, but human interventionists to be more skillful than social robots at teaching social skills to children on the autism spectrum. I present arguments for the need to change the role of the robot in the therapy for persons on the autism spectrum to practicing only already acquired social skills. Robots could also be used as interactive social toys that provide human interventionists the opportunity to teach social skills to persons on the autism spectrum. Regarding human therapies for persons on the autism spectrum, my review shows human rhythm therapy to have the potential to address and improve social interaction as a process compared to behavioral therapy that limits social interaction competence only to social skills. I found that the low number of studies providing informed recommendations to peer study fields documents the persistence of the communication gap, especially between applied research and therapeutic practice addressing the Autism Spectrum Disorder. For this reason, I call for scientists and practitioners in the field to address the assumed communication challenge: the enactivist philosophers to provide guidelines about what qualitative and/or quantitative evaluations (i.e., phenomenological and/or behavioral) can be applied to investigate the concepts of enactive social interaction, how to empirically study the phenomenon of social interaction, and whether and how the concept can be targeted and improved in a therapeutic context; and the call for engineers and interventionists working with persons on the autism spectrum to closely collaborate, in order to develop ethical robot-therapy designs that safeguard the human condition of everyone involved and affected. iii Zusammenfassung Wie funktioniert die soziale Interaktion bei Personen aus dem Autismus-Spektrum? Motiviert durch bestehende Lücken in Forschung und Praxis und nach mehreren Treffen mit Professionellen aus dem Feld der Autismus Forschung (d.h. aus den Kognitionswissenschaften, Philosophie, Ingenieurwesen), war es mein Ziel, in dieser Masterarbeit wissenschaftliche Publikationen zu analysieren, in denen Charakteristika der sozialen Fähigkeiten der Interaktion von Menschen aus dem Autismus-Spektrum aus der Perspektive der Theorie (d.h. „Participatory Sense- Making), Forschung (Studien in denen die visuelle, motorische und Fähigkeiten der sozialen Interaktion untersucht wurden) und Therapie (d.h. menschliche- und Roboter-Therapie) diskutiert werden. Diese Arbeit soll zudem die wissenschaftliche Kommunikation zwischen Praktikern, Ingenieuren und Akademikern, welche die Autismus- Spektrum-Störung erforschen erleichtern. Außerdem soll sie die Ansicht verbreiten, dass eine Autismus-Spektrum- Störung nicht zwangsweise eine Beeinträchtigung, sondern eher eine atypische Form der Entwicklung darstellt. Als trainierte Psychologin, mit anderthalbjähriger Erfahrung in der angewandten Verhaltensanalyse, die Kindern aus dem Autismus-Spektrum bestimmte Fähigkeiten beigebracht hat, will ich auch aus der Perspektive als Interventionistin, die Literatur aus dem wissenschaftlichen und dem therapeutischen Feld untersuchen, um anderen Experten aus dem Feld Vorschläge für deren zukünftige Forschungsansätze machen. Die vorliegende Arbeit ist daher an Akademiker, die die Autismus-Spektrum-Störung erforschen (inklusive Philosophen, Psychologen und Ingenieure) und an Interventionisten gerichtet, die im therapeutischen Setting, mit Personen aus dem Autismus- Spektrum arbeiten. Unter den verschiedenen Paradigmen der Kognitionswissenschaften, spricht der kognitivistische Ansatz der “Theory of Mind” von eingeschränkten Fähigkeiten zur Mentalisierung bei Personen aus dem Autismus-Spektrum. Dieser Ansatz wird aber dahingehend kritisiert, dass hierbei nicht die gesamte Brandbreite der soziale Interaktion beschrieben wird. Im Kontrast dazu, steht die enaktivistische Perspektive der sozialen Interaktion. Im Sinne der hier postulierten „participatory-sense-making“- Hypothese, gibt es bestimmte Verhaltensweisen bei Menschen aus dem Autismus-Spektrum, sich sozial zu koordinieren und zu interagieren. Anstatt auf Besonderheiten von Zuständen und Übergängen, fokussiert sich der enaktivistische Ansatz auf die Dynamik von Bewegungen und persönlichen Beziehungen, außerdem auf den Rhythmus der Interaktion, der die soziale Einheit zwischen einer Person aus dem Autismus-Spektrum und einer Person mit typischer Entwicklung definiert. Die Participatory Sense-Making Theorie von De Jaegher (2013) postuliert, dass Personen aus dem Autismus-Spektrum, basierend auf ihrem “autistischen” embodiment, den Abläufen in ihrer Umwelt einen Sinn geben und mit ihr interagieren. In dieser Arbeit habe Ich Literatur aus dem Feld der Psychologie untersucht, in der die motorischen und visuellen Wahrnehmungsprozesse