We can be communicating before we realise that our behaviour is being read as a message.
I discovered what I call Reactive Predictive Communications (RPC) while crossing the road to the library in 2005. There was no zebra crossing there at the time, so I needed to look out for vehicles.
I noticed that when I moved my leg half a step back, vehicles would continue without slowing down, allowing me to cross the road faster than if I stood at the edge of the curb. I realised that my posture was functioning as a signal. To a driver, it could mean, “I am waiting. I am not about to step into your path.” I was watching the vehicles and anticipating what they would do. But the drivers could also be watching me and anticipating what I would do. My movement was not merely a change in physical position. It was information that could affect their next action.
I later noticed that when I walked very loudly behind a crowd of slow-moving people, they would part to let me pass without my saying anything. The response seemed automatic. My footsteps made my approach apparent, and people made space before I reached them. What interested me was not merely that noise attracted attention. People were responding to something that had not yet happened: my arrival at the space they occupied. I understood this as another signal.
I was not an observer standing outside the situation. I was part of what other people were predicting.
Recognising the conversation inside the behaviour
A movement need not be intended as a message to be read as one. Once I recognise that it is being interpreted, I can also take that interpretation into account. I am no longer asking only, “What will this person do?” I am asking, “What does this person expect me to do, and how does my behaviour affect that expectation?”
I could observe the response, not read the mind behind it. The meaning I describe is how I understood the behaviour. People may have consciously inferred an intention, made a habitual adjustment, or done some combination of the two. The interaction does not require everyone to silently recite the same explanation.
The road-crossing account describes my discovery, not a technique to test in traffic. Use designated crossings, check that it is safe to cross, and do not assume that a driver has seen or understood a gesture. Around pedestrians, a clear “Excuse me” is preferable to making footsteps increasingly loud when someone does not respond.
What Reactive Predictive Communications means
RPC brings together two abilities. One is recognising a pattern of behaviour and anticipating its possible continuation. The other is considering what another person knows, wants and expects, including what they think I know, want and expect.
I think of RPC as a Human Prediction co-processor working alongside the conscious mind. Predictions can become available without my consciously reasoning through every step. But the co-processor is only as good as the model available to it. An aspect of another person’s experience that I cannot access myself, such as Relational Meaning before my breakthrough, is a blind spot in that model.
Different openings expanded what I could understand. With my “physics engine” available, a cup close to a table edge carried a sense of “fragile vulnerability”. I could understand why someone would avoid putting it there without first reasoning through the possible accident.
Relational Meaning greatly expanded what this prediction system could work with. The change was qualitative, not merely faster calculation: like moving from a simplified graphical map to richly detailed satellite imagery. The felt significance of relationships could now enter the model, rather than being approximated only through rule-based roles. This is a metaphor for my experience, not a claim that my predictions became infallible.
I anticipate what you will anticipate, and act with that in mind. Your response then affects what I do next.
Predictive: What I expect to happen influences my present action. I consider how another person may interpret and respond to what I am about to do.
Reactive: I remain responsive to what actually happens. I revise my expectation rather than insist that the person follow the sequence in my head. Here, reactive does not mean emotionally impulsive.
Communications: Our words, gestures and actions help coordinate what happens between us. We are not merely transmitting facts; we are also making intentions, expectations and possible next moves understandable.
Before speaking, I can mentally try out a message, consider its likely reception and adjust its wording or timing. After speaking, I must attend to the actual person rather than continue talking to the imaginary person in my head.
This does not require indirect speech. “I can send a rough version by three, or a checked version by five. Which do you need?” is direct communication that anticipates a deadline, explains a limitation and gives the other person a meaningful choice.
Nor is considering our effect on someone automatically manipulation. Reassurance, explanation, negotiation and an honest refusal all involve anticipating a response. The distinction is between helping someone understand and deceiving or pressuring them to obtain cooperation.
For an autistic person who keeps being surprised by human behaviour, this can be an important missing layer. We may understand the words, follow an instruction and care about doing the right thing, yet miss what the other person expects our response to make possible.
“But I never said that” does not settle what our behaviour appeared to communicate. Equally, someone else’s interpretation does not establish what we intended. The useful question is where the two diverged and what would make the next exchange clearer.
A silent bargain in Aliens
The egg-chamber scene in Aliens (1986) illustrates a more elaborate exchange conducted without any language. Ellen Ripley is protecting Newt while facing the Alien Queen and approaching hostile aliens. She demonstrates her flamethrower, then threatens the eggs without immediately burning them. The Queen signals the other aliens to withdraw.
I read the exchange as a temporary bargain:
- Ripley anticipates danger: The approaching aliens will attack her and Newt, so she responds before the attack occurs.
- She identifies something the Queen wants to protect: The eggs give the Queen a reason to prevent an immediate attack.
- She makes a possible consequence visible: Firing her flamethrower into the open air indicates what could happen to the eggs. Ripley expects the Queen to complete the pattern.
- Her restraint adds meaning: By not immediately burning the eggs, she leaves room for a response. The implied bargain is safe passage in exchange for leaving the eggs unharmed.
- She anticipates the Queen’s anticipation: Ripley acts on the expectation that the Queen will recognise both the threat and the opportunity to avoid it.
- The Queen makes an answer visible: Her hand geature to the other aliens functions as a response to the offer.
- The other aliens make that answer effective: The other aliens see the queen’s gesture and Ripley’s implied threat. They understand the queen’s intent and retreat to complete the bargain.
- Ripley responds to the change: Ripley begins to withdraw with Newt. Each side’s behaviour temporarily makes the other’s next move possible.
The understanding does not last: an egg opens and Ripley eventually burns the nest. That does not erase the communication that preceded it. An apparent agreement still has to be assessed as events change.
The lesson is not to imitate threats in everyday life but to notice how an anticipated consequence and the opportunity to respond can give meaning to an action, or to a deliberate pause. A list of physical movements would miss the bargain.
The table and the two towels
Once, I knocked over a glass in front of a guest. My mother asked me to wipe the table. I went to the sink, where there was a wet towel and a dry one, and took the wet towel. She told me to go back for the dry towel, so I did.
Then I stood there, unsure how to wipe the table. My mother demanded to know why I was idling and told me to start. I began wiping in a zigzag pattern, like a scanner moving across the surface.
She wanted me to go straight to the spilled area. She said I was stupid for failing to understand such simple commands. I retorted that her instructions were not explicit, so how was I supposed to know?
I had gone for the towel, changed it when told, and devised a method of wiping. I was trying to comply. But she expected me to know what her words had not supplied to me. My uncertainty looked like idling; my systematic method looked stupid. The things we thought were obvious were not the same.
That did not mean I needed every step of every task written out. My failed scheduling system taught me the cost of excessive detail. Here, I needed the missing information, not more pressure to act as though I already had it.
The self-other reference point
Another part of RPC is recognising that my definition of a situation is not automatically the other person’s definition. Consider a teacher asking a student to arrange the classroom tables and chairs.
A student may construct an ideal model of a perfectly arranged classroom and move every table and chair to the exact millimetre. Another may first consider the “rules of the social game”: what the teacher needs, how the result will be assessed and when the room must be ready.
The teacher evaluates the assignment, so the teacher’s requirements affect whether the student passes. The student may also want to finish in time to meet friends. The challenge is not necessarily to create the best arrangement imaginable, but to complete the actual task well enough within the available time.
These are different reference points, not two fixed types of human being:
The goal: “I must correct every deviation from perfect order” is different from “The teacher needs a presentable, usable classroom for the next lesson.”
What is known: “I know the top of the cabinet is dusty” is different from “The teacher may never inspect that surface.” What I know and what another person knows are not interchangeable.
The standard: “I finish only when I cannot find any imperfection” is different from “I finish when the room meets the agreed requirements for its use.”
When attention is locked onto a task, it can feel as though time exists only inside that activity and the rest of life waits for us. It does not. The next lesson approaches, someone else is waiting and our own plans are being displaced. Precision has a cost even when that cost is outside our immediate attention.
The practical response is to ask, “Do you want the usual rows? Does this include cleaning? When must it be ready?” These questions give the teacher a chance to clarify an expectation before we spend an hour satisfying a different one.
This is not an argument for hiding poor work. Unseen dirt, blocked access or an unsafe arrangement can still matter. Nor does the teacher’s authority make every instruction reasonable. We can clarify, negotiate or challenge a requirement. What we cannot sensibly do is ignore it and expect our effort alone to make the result useful.
Another person’s perspective is information I need, not an instruction to abandon my judgement. Doing more of what was never needed can mean doing less of what mattered.
Practising without creating another rigid script
Start with manageable interactions where a misunderstanding can be corrected. The aim is not to monitor every gesture or calculate every possible response.
- Notice: What actually happened? Separate the observable action from the meaning I attached to it.
- Consider: What might each person want, know and be limited by? Include myself without treating the other person as another version of me.
- Anticipate: What might my next words or actions suggest? Consider a plausible alternative to my first interpretation, not an endless catalogue of possibilities.
- Communicate: Make the important intention, question or boundary clear. Give the other person something they can meaningfully answer.
- Update: Compare their response with my expectation. Clarify a mismatch rather than forcing it into my original explanation.
A colleague’s brief reply might mean they are angry, busy or unsure what answer is needed. Replaying the exchange in our head cannot settle which explanation is correct. A focused question such as “Do you need anything changed before I proceed?” may obtain information that more guessing cannot.
In experiments on interpersonal understanding, instructions to imagine another person’s perspective did not consistently improve accuracy. In a final experiment, obtaining their perspective through conversation did. Imagination can produce a hypothesis; it does not verify it. An answer is information to consider alongside behaviour, not a guarantee of honesty or accuracy.
Ask for written instructions, clearer language or more processing time when these help. A useful approach should reduce confusion without becoming a demand to perform constant social calculations.
Someone can also understand us perfectly and still disagree or say no. That is not necessarily a communication failure. RPC is not a method for making refusal disappear, and understanding someone does not oblige us to please them. Sometimes it helps us recognise that we should refuse or leave.
Rules of Thumb for Easier Decisions explains how I turn experience into revisable guidelines. Beware of words and theories addresses the danger of letting a model replace reality. RPC identifies a particular interaction to notice and learn from.
What an action meant, and what I assumed
During an overseas trip, I shared a room with an autistic friend. At 2:30 am, he was making a din while packing. I explained that I needed to sleep and asked him to continue in the morning. He said that he needed only another half-hour and continued, despite my explaining the effect on me.
The following day, we needed to fetch water after our bath. When I began filling the pails, he left without explanation. I thought he was not going to help. About twenty minutes later, he returned with two pails of water.
The two incidents belong together because they correct different mistakes. His difficulty recognising my need for sleep did not make the need disappear. My interpretation of his departure did not establish that he was unwilling to contribute.
An explicit statement of a need deserves attention. An unexplained action still leaves something unknown. I need to distinguish what the other person has told me, what their conduct has shown and what I have supplied as an explanation.
The later help did not erase the earlier disturbance. The earlier disturbance did not prove that every later action was selfish. Understanding an interaction requires more than preserving one judgement of the person.
From observing people to participating with them
Creativity & Story Writing describes a different breakthrough: my characters ceased being props and began making choices that shaped the story. Writing can give us time to explore how one person’s action changes another’s expectations without having to respond in real time.
In Entering the NeuroTypical Parallel Universe, I describe Relational Meaning: why particular people, places and promises matter. Anticipating a response and experiencing the significance of a relationship are connected, but they are not the same insight.
What I want autistic readers to take from RPC is not a collection of tricks for getting people out of the way. It is the recognition that our actions enter another person’s expectations, and their response returns to ours. The interaction is already happening, whether or not we have noticed it.
The question I want us to ask is not only “What will they do?” It is also “What am I telling them that I am about to do?” Recognising that exchange gives us something to understand, clarify and change instead of repeatedly being surprised by it.