Automated facial expression measurement in a longitudinal sample of 4- and 8-month-olds: Baby FaceReader 9 and manual coding of affective expressions

Facial expressions are among the earliest behaviors infants use to express emotional states, and are crucial to preverbal social interaction. Manual coding of infant facial expressions, however, is laborious and poses limitations to replicability. Recent developments in computer vision have advanced automated facial expression analyses in adults, providing reproducible results at lower time investment. Baby FaceReader 9 is commercially available software for automated measurement of infant facial expressions, but has received little validation. We compared Baby FaceReader 9 output to manual micro-coding of positive, negative, or neutral facial expressions in a longitudinal dataset of 58 infants at 4 and 8 months of age during naturalistic face-to-face interactions with the mother, father, and an unfamiliar adult. Baby FaceReader 9's global emotional valence formula yielded reasonable classification accuracy (AUC = .81) for discriminating manually coded positive from negative/neutral facial expressions; however, the discrimination of negative from neutral facial expressions was not reliable (AUC = .58). Automatically detected a priori action unit (AU) configurations for distinguishing positive from negative facial expressions based on existing literature were also not reliable. A parsimonious approach using only automatically detected smiling (AU12) yielded good performance for discriminating positive from negative/neutral facial expressions (AUC = .86). Likewise, automatically detected brow lowering (AU3+AU4) reliably distinguished neutral from negative facial expressions (AUC = .79). These results provide initial support for the use of selected automatically detected individual facial actions to index positive and negative affect in young infants, but shed doubt on the accuracy of complex a priori formulas.

Predicting pointing from early socioemotional communication with mothers, fathers, and strangers through the lens of temperamental reactivity

Socioemotional and referential communication are primary expressions of interpersonal engagement in infancy and beyond. Early socioemotional communication in dyadic interactions may form a foundation for triadic referential communication and gesture production, yet the role of temperament in moderating their association has not been examined. We investigated whether early socioemotional communication behaviors, and infant temperamental reactivity, were associated with later pointing production. Participants were 51 infants (45% girls) and both their parents (86.5% Dutch). Early infant socioemotional communication (production of smile, vocalizations, and gaze) was observed during separate home-based face-to-face interactions with mothers, fathers, and strangers at 4 and 8 months. At both ages, mothers and fathers reported on infant temperamental surgency and negative affectivity, and overall means were calculated. Referential communication (declarative pointing) was measured during structured lab-based observations at 12 and 15 months. Socioemotional and referential communication behaviors were microanalytically coded second by second. Poisson multilevel regression analyses indicated interaction effects between temperament and smile, vocalizations, and gazes to the adult's face with each partner in predicting pointing. High levels of infant temperamental surgency tended to enhance positive associations between early socioemotional communication behaviors with mothers and fathers and pointing. By contrast, high levels of negative affectivity tended to dampen associations between early communication behaviors with strangers and pointing. Results highlight the importance of infant socioemotional communication with diverse partners and the moderating role of temperamental reactivity in predicting referential communication. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

Cultural facial expressions dynamically convey emotion category and intensity information

Communicating emotional intensity plays a vital ecological role because it provides valuable information about the nature and likelihood of the sender's behavior.1,2,3 For example, attack often follows signals of intense aggression if receivers fail to retreat.4,5 Humans regularly use facial expressions to communicate such information.6,7,8,9,10,11 Yet how this complex signaling task is achieved remains unknown. We addressed this question using a perception-based, data-driven method to mathematically model the specific facial movements that receivers use to classify the six basic emotions-"happy," "surprise," "fear," "disgust," "anger," and "sad"-and judge their intensity in two distinct cultures (East Asian, Western European; total n = 120). In both cultures, receivers expected facial expressions to dynamically represent emotion category and intensity information over time, using a multi-component compositional signaling structure. Specifically, emotion intensifiers peaked earlier or later than emotion classifiers and represented intensity using amplitude variations. Emotion intensifiers are also more similar across emotions than classifiers are, suggesting a latent broad-plus-specific signaling structure. Cross-cultural analysis further revealed similarities and differences in expectations that could impact cross-cultural communication. Specifically, East Asian and Western European receivers have similar expectations about which facial movements represent high intensity for threat-related emotions, such as "anger," "disgust," and "fear," but differ on those that represent low threat emotions, such as happiness and sadness. Together, our results provide new insights into the intricate processes by which facial expressions can achieve complex dynamic signaling tasks by revealing the rich information embedded in facial expressions.

Investigating Children's Interactions in Preschool Classrooms: An Overview of Research Using Automated Sensing Technologies

New technologies that combine digital sensors with automated processing algorithms are now being deployed to study preschool classrooms. This article provides an overview of these new sensing technologies, focusing on automated speaker classification, the analysis of children's and teachers' speech, and the detection and analysis of their movements over the course of the school day. Findings from recent studies utilizing these technologies are presented to illustrate the contribution of these sensing technologies to our understanding of classroom processes that predict children's language and social development. In particular, the potential to collect extended real-time data on the speech and movement of all children and teachers in a classroom provides a broader window on the variability of individual children's interactions with peers and teachers and their integration into classroom social networks. The article describes current challenges related to the use of sensing technologies in preschool settings, as well as advances that may overcome these challenges and allow for more in-depth investigations of children's early classroom experiences.

Automated measurement of infant and mother Duchenne facial expressions in the Face-to-Face/Still-Face

Although still-face effects are well-studied, little is known about the degree to which the Face-to-Face/Still-Face (FFSF) is associated with the production of intense affective displays. Duchenne smiling expresses more intense positive affect than non-Duchenne smiling, while Duchenne cry-faces express more intense negative affect than non-Duchenne cry-faces. Forty 4-month-old infants and their mothers completed the FFSF, and key affect-indexing facial Action Units (AUs) were coded by expert Facial Action Coding System coders for the first 30 s of each FFSF episode. Computer vision software, automated facial affect recognition (AFAR), identified AUs for the entire 2-min episodes. Expert coding and AFAR produced similar infant and mother Duchenne and non-Duchenne FFSF effects, highlighting the convergent validity of automated measurement. Substantive AFAR analyses indicated that both infant Duchenne and non-Duchenne smiling declined from the FF to the SF, but only Duchenne smiling increased from the SF to the RE. In similar fashion, the magnitude of mother Duchenne smiling changes over the FFSF were 2-4 times greater than non-Duchenne smiling changes. Duchenne expressions appear to be a sensitive index of intense infant and mother affective valence that are accessible to automated measurement and may be a target for future FFSF research.

Automated measures of vocal interactions and engagement in inclusive preschool classrooms

Classroom engagement plays a crucial role in preschoolers' development, yet the correlates of engagement, especially among children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and developmental delays (DD), remains unknown. This study examines levels of engagement with classroom social partners and tasks among children in three groups ASD, DD, and typical development (TD). Here, we asked whether children's vocal interactions (vocalizations to and from peers and teachers) were associated with their classroom engagement with social partners (peers and teachers) and with tasks, and whether the association between classroom engagement and vocal interactions differed between children in the ASD group and their peers in the DD and TD groups. Automated measures of vocalizations and location quantified children's vocal interactions with peers and teachers over the course of the school year. Automated location and vocalization data were used to capture both (1) children's vocal output to specific peers and teachers, and (2) the vocal input they received from those peers and teachers. Participants were 72 3-5-year-olds (Mage  = 48.6 months, SD = 7.0, 43% girls) and their teachers. Children in the ASD group displayed lower engagement with peers, teachers, and tasks than children in the TD group; they also showed lower engagement with peers than children in the DD group. Overall, children's own vocalizations were positively associated with engagement with social partners. Thus, although children in the ASD group tend to have lower engagement scores than children in the TD group, active participation in vocal interactions appears to support their classroom engagement with teachers and peers.

A Comparative Analysis of the Full and Short Versions of the Social Responsiveness Scale in Estimating an Established Autism Risk Factor Association in ECHO: Do we Get the Same Estimates?

PURPOSE

Prior work developed a shortened 16-item version of the Social Responsiveness Scale (SRS), a quantitative measure of social communication and autism spectrum disorder (ASD)-related traits. However, its properties for use in risk factor estimation have not been fully tested compared to the full SRS. We compared the associations between gestational age (previously established risk factor for ASD) and the 65-item "full" and 16-item "short" versions of the SRS to test the shortened version's ability to capture associations in epidemiologic analyses of ASD risk factors.

METHODS

We used data from participants in the Environmental influences on Child Health Outcomes (ECHO) Program (n = 2,760). SRS scores were collected via maternal/caregiver report when children were aged 2.5-18 years. We compared estimates of associations between gestational age and preterm birth between the full and short SRS using multivariable linear regression, quantile regression, and prediction methods.

RESULTS

Overall, associations based on full and short SRS scores were highly comparable. For example, we observed positive associations between preterm birth with both full ([Formula: see text]=2.8; 95% CI [1.7, 4.0]) and short ([Formula: see text]=2.9; 95% CI [1.6, 4.3]) SRS scores. Quantile regression analyses indicated similar direction and magnitude of associations across the distribution of SRS scores between gestational age with both short and full SRS scores.

CONCLUSION

The comparability in estimates obtained for full and short SRS scores with an "established" ASD risk factor suggests ability of the shortened SRS in assessing associations with potential ASD-related risk factors and has implications for large-scale research studies seeking to reduce participant burden.

Understanding speech and language in tuberous sclerosis complex

Tuberous Sclerosis Complex (TSC), is a neurocutaneous disorder, associated with a high prevalence of autism spectrum disorder (ASD; ∼50% of individuals). As TSC is a leading cause of syndromic ASD, understanding language development in this population would not only be important for individuals with TSC but may also have implications for those with other causes of syndromic and idiopathic ASD. In this mini review, we consider what is known about language development in this population and how speech and language in TSC are related to ASD. Although up to 70% of individuals with TSC report language difficulties, much of the limited research to date on language in TSC has been based on summary scores from standardized assessments. Missing is a detailed understanding of the mechanisms driving speech and language in TSC and how they relate to ASD. Here, we review recent work suggesting that canonical babbling and volubility-two precursors of language development that predict the emergence of speech and are delayed in infants with idiopathic ASD-are also delayed in infants with TSC. We then look to the broader literature on language development to identify other early precursors of language development that tend to be delayed in children with autism as a guide for future research on speech and language in TSC. We argue that vocal turn-taking, shared attention, and fast mapping are three such skills that can provide important information about how speech and language develop in TSC and where potential delays come from. The overall goal of this line of research is to not only illuminate the trajectory of language in TSC with and without ASD, but to ultimately find strategies for earlier recognition and treatment of the pervasive language difficulties in this population.

Social motivation predicts gaze following between 6 and 14 months

Infants vary in their ability to follow others' gazes, but it is unclear how these individual differences emerge. We tested whether social motivation levels in early infancy predict later gaze following skills. We longitudinally tracked infants' (N = 82) gazes and pupil dilation while they observed videos of a woman looking into the camera simulating eye contact (i.e., mutual gaze) and then gazing toward one of two objects, at 2, 4, 6, 8, and 14 months of age. To improve measurement validity, we used confirmatory factor analysis to combine multiple observed measures to index the underlying constructs of social motivation and gaze following. Infants' social motivation-indexed by their speed of social orienting, duration of mutual gaze, and degree of pupil dilation during mutual gaze-was developmentally stable and positively predicted the development of gaze following-indexed by their proportion of time looking to the target object, first object look difference scores, and first face-to-object saccade difference scores-from 6 to 14 months of age. These findings suggest that infants' social motivation likely plays a role in the development of gaze following and highlight the use of a multi-measure approach to improve measurement sensitivity and validity in infancy research.

Objective Measurement of Social Gaze and Smile Behaviors in Children with Suspected Autism Spectrum Disorder During Administration of the Autism Diagnostic Observation Schedule, 2nd Edition

Best practice for the assessment of autism spectrum disorder (ASD) symptom severity relies on clinician ratings of the Autism Diagnostic Observation Schedule, 2nd Edition (ADOS-2), but the association of these ratings with objective measures of children's social gaze and smiling is unknown. Sixty-six preschool-age children (49 boys, M = 39.97 months, SD = 10.58) with suspected ASD (61 confirmed ASD) were administered the ADOS-2 and provided social affect calibrated severity scores (SA CSS). Children's social gaze and smiling during the ADOS-2, captured with a camera contained in eyeglasses worn by the examiner and parent, were obtained via a computer vision processing pipeline. Children who gazed more at their parents (p = .04) and whose gaze at their parents involved more smiling (p = .02) received lower social affect severity scores, indicating fewer social affect symptoms, adjusted R² = .15, p = .003.

Infant AFAR: Automated facial action recognition in infants

Automated detection of facial action units in infants is challenging. Infant faces have different proportions, less texture, fewer wrinkles and furrows, and unique facial actions relative to adults. For these and related reasons, action unit (AU) detectors that are trained on adult faces may generalize poorly to infant faces. To train and test AU detectors for infant faces, we trained convolutional neural networks (CNN) in adult video databases and fine-tuned these networks in two large, manually annotated, infant video databases that differ in context, head pose, illumination, video resolution, and infant age. AUs were those central to expression of positive and negative emotion. AU detectors trained in infants greatly outperformed ones trained previously in adults. Training AU detectors across infant databases afforded greater robustness to between-database differences than did training database specific AU detectors and outperformed previous state-of-the-art in infant AU detection. The resulting AU detection system, which we refer to as Infant AFAR (Automated Facial Action Recognition), is available to the research community for further testing and applications in infant emotion, social interaction, and related topics.

Objective quantification of homophily in children with and without disabilities in naturalistic contexts

Homophily, the tendency for individuals to preferentially interact with others similar to themselves is typically documented via self-report and, for children, adult report. Few studies have investigated homophily directly using objective measures of social movement. We quantified homophily in children with developmental disabilities (DD) and typical development (TD) using objective measures of position/orientation in preschool inclusion classrooms, designed to promote interaction between these groups of children. Objective measurements were collected using ultra-wideband radio-frequency tracking to determine social approach and social contact, measures of social movement and interaction. Observations of 77 preschoolers (47 with DD, and 30 TD) were conducted in eight inclusion classrooms on a total of 26 days. We compared DD and TD groups with respect to how children approached and shared time in social contact with peers using mixed-effects models. Children in concordant dyads (DD-DD and TD-TD) both moved toward each other at higher velocities and spent greater time in social contact than discordant dyads (DD-TD), evidencing homophily. DD-DD dyads spent less time in social contact than TD-TD dyads but were comparable to TD-TD dyads in their social approach velocities. Children's preference for similar peers appears to be a pervasive feature of their naturalistic interactions.

Genomic architecture of autism from comprehensive whole-genome sequence annotation

Fully understanding autism spectrum disorder (ASD) genetics requires whole-genome sequencing (WGS). We present the latest release of the Autism Speaks MSSNG resource, which includes WGS data from 5,100 individuals with ASD and 6,212 non-ASD parents and siblings (total n = 11,312). Examining a wide variety of genetic variants in MSSNG and the Simons Simplex Collection (SSC; n = 9,205), we identified ASD-associated rare variants in 718/5,100 individuals with ASD from MSSNG (14.1%) and 350/2,419 from SSC (14.5%). Considering genomic architecture, 52% were nuclear sequence-level variants, 46% were nuclear structural variants (including copy-number variants, inversions, large insertions, uniparental isodisomies, and tandem repeat expansions), and 2% were mitochondrial variants. Our study provides a guidebook for exploring genotype-phenotype correlations in families who carry ASD-associated rare variants and serves as an entry point to the expanded studies required to dissect the etiology in the ∼85% of the ASD population that remain idiopathic.

Classroom language during COVID-19: Associations between mask-wearing and objectively measured teacher and preschooler vocalizations

During the COVID-19 pandemic, mask-wearing in classrooms has become commonplace. However, there are little data on the effect of face-masks on children’s language input and production in educational contexts, like preschool classrooms which over half of United States children attend. Leveraging repeated objective measurements, we longitudinally examined child and teacher speech-related vocalizations in two cohorts of 3.5–4.5-year-old children enrolled in the same oral language classroom that included children with and without hearing loss. Cohort 1 was observed before COVID-19 (no face-masks, N = 20) and Cohort 2 was observed during COVID-19 (with face-masks; N = 15). Vocalization data were collected using child-worn audio recorders over 12 observations spanning two successive school years, yielding 9.09 mean hours of audio recording per child. During COVID-19 teachers produced a higher number of words per minute than teachers observed prior to COVID-19. However, teacher vocalizations during COVID-19 contained fewer unique phonemes than teacher vocalizations prior to COVID-19. Children observed during COVID-19 did not exhibit deficits in the duration, rate, or phonemic diversity of their vocalizations compared to children observed prior to COVID-19. Children observed during COVID-19 produced vocalizations that were longer in duration than vocalizations of children observed prior to COVID-19. During COVID-19 (but not before), children who were exposed to a higher number of words per minute from teachers produced more speech-related vocalizations per minute themselves. Overall, children with hearing loss were exposed to teacher vocalizations that were longer in duration, more teacher words per minute, and more phonemically diverse teacher speech than children with typical hearing. In terms of production, children with hearing loss produced vocalizations that were longer in duration than the vocalizations of children with typical hearing. Among children observed during COVID-19, children with hearing loss exhibited a higher vocalization rate than children with typical hearing. These results suggest that children’s language production is largely unaffected by mask use in the classroom and that children can benefit from the language they are exposed to despite teacher mask-wearing.

Infant temperamental fear, pupil dilation, and gaze aversion from smiling strangers

In childhood, higher levels of temperamental fear-an early-emerging proclivity to distress in the face of novelty-are associated with lower social responsivity and greater social anxiety. While the early emergence of temperamental fear in infancy is poorly understood, it is theorized to be driven by individual differences in reactivity and self-regulation to novel stimuli. The current study used eye tracking to capture infants' (N = 124) reactions to a video of a smiling stranger-a common social encounter-including infant gaze aversions from the stranger's face (indexing arousal regulation) and pupil dilation (indexing physiological reactivity), longitudinally at 2, 4, 6, and 8 months of age. Multilevel mixed-effects models indicated that more fearful infants took more time to look away from a smiling stranger's face than less fearful infants, suggesting that high-fear infants may have slower arousal regulation. At 2 and 4 months, more fearful infants also exhibited greater and faster pupil dilation before gaze aversions, consistent with greater physiological reactivity. Together, these findings suggest that individual differences in infants' gaze aversions and pupil dilation can index the development of fearful temperament in early infancy, facilitating the identification of, and interventions for, risk factors to social disruptions.

Early predictors of language skills at 3 years of age vary based on diagnostic outcome: A baby siblings research consortium study

While previous work has identified the early predictors of language skills in infants at elevated familial risk (ER) and low familial risk (LR) for autism spectrum disorder (ASD), no studies to date have explored whether these predictors vary based on diagnostic outcome of ASD or no ASD. The present study used a large, multisite dataset to examine associations between a set of commonly studied predictor variables (infant gesture abilities, fine motor skills, nonverbal cognition, and maternal education level), measured at 12 months, and language skills, measured at 3 years, across three diagnostic outcome groups-infants with ASD ("ASD"), ER infants without ASD ("ER-no ASD"), and LR infants without ASD ("LR-no ASD"). Findings revealed that the predictors of language skills differed across groups, as gesture abilities were positively associated with language skills in the ER-no ASD group but negatively associated with language skills in the ASD group. Furthermore, maternal education level was positively associated with language skills in the ASD and LR-no ASD groups only. Variability in these early predictors may help explain why language skills are heterogeneous across the autism spectrum, and, with further study, may help clinicians identify those in need of additional and/or specialized intervention services that support language development. LAY SUMMARY: The present study identified predictors of language skills in infants with and without autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Maternal education level and 12-month gesture abilities predicted 3-year language skills in infants with ASD. Measuring these predictors early in life may help identify infants and families in need of additional and/or specialized intervention services that support language development.

Objective measurement of vocalizations in the assessment of autism spectrum disorder symptoms in preschool age children

Assessment of autism spectrum disorder (ASD) relies on expert clinician observation and judgment, but objective measurement tools have the potential to provide additional information on ASD symptom severity. Diagnostic evaluations for ASD typically include the autism diagnostic observation schedule (ADOS-2), a semi-structured assessment composed of a series of social presses. The current study examined associations between concurrent objective features of child vocalizations during the ADOS-2 and examiner-rated autism symptom severity. The sample included 66 children (49 male; M = 40 months, SD = 10.58) evaluated in a university-based clinic, 61 of whom received an ASD diagnosis. Research reliable administration of the ADOS-2 provided social affect (SA) and restricted and repetitive behavior (RRB) calibrated severity scores (CSS). Audio was recorded from examiner-worn eyeglasses during the ADOS-2 and child and adult speech were differentiated with LENA SP Hub. PRAAT was used to ascertain acoustic features of the audio signal, specifically the mean fundamental vocal frequency (F0) of LENA-identified child speech-like vocalizations (those with phonemic content), child cry vocalizations, and adult speech. Sphinx-4 was employed to estimate child and adult phonological features indexed by the average consonant and vowel count per vocalization. More than a quarter of the variance in ADOS-2 RRB CSS was predicted by the combination of child phoneme count per vocalization and child vocalization F0. Findings indicate that both acoustic and phonological features of child vocalizations are associated with expert clinician ratings of autism symptom severity. LAY SUMMARY: Determination of the severity of autism spectrum disorder is based in part on expert (but subjective) clinician observations during the ADOS-2. Two characteristics of child vocalizations-a smaller number of speech-like sounds per vocalization and higher pitched vocalizations (including cries)-were associated with greater autism symptom severity. The results suggest that objectively ascertained characteristics of children's vocalizations capture variance in children's restricted and repetitive behaviors that are reflected in clinician severity indices.

Reciprocal Patterns of Peer Speech in Preschoolers with and without Hearing Loss

Children with hearing loss often attend inclusive preschool classrooms aimed at improving their spoken language skills. Although preschool classrooms are fertile environments for vocal interaction with peers, little is known about the dyadic processes that influence children's speech to one another and foster their language abilities and how these processes may vary in children with hearing loss. We used new objective measurement approaches to identify and quantify children's vocalizations during social contact, as determined by children's proximity and mutual orientation. The contributions of peer vocalizations to children's future vocalizations and language abilities were examined in oral language inclusion classrooms containing children with hearing loss who use hearing aids or cochlear implants and their typically hearing peers. Across over 600 hours of recorded vocal interactions of twenty-nine 2.5-3.5 year olds (16 girls) in three cohorts of children in a classroom, we found that vocalizations from each peer on a given observation predicted a child's vocalizations to that same peer on the subsequent observation. Children who produced more vocalizations to their peers had higher receptive and expressive language abilities, as measured by a standardized end-of-year language assessment. In fact, vocalizations from peers had an indirect association with end-of-year language abilities as mediated by children's vocalizations to peers. These findings did not vary as a function of hearing status. Overall, then, the results demonstrate the importance of dyadic peer vocal interactions for children's language use and abilities.

Objectively measured teacher and preschooler vocalizations: Phonemic diversity is associated with language abilities

Over half of US children are enrolled in preschools, where the quantity and quality of language input from teachers are likely to affect children's language development. Leveraging repeated objective measurements, we examined the rate per minute and phonemic diversity of child and teacher speech-related vocalizations in preschool classrooms and their association with children's end-of-year receptive and expressive language abilities measured with the Preschool Language Scales (PLS-5). Phonemic diversity was computed as the number of unique consonants and vowels in a speech-related vocalization. We observed three successive cohorts of 2.5-3.5-year-old children enrolled in an oral language classroom that included children with and without hearing loss (N = 29, 16 girls, 14 Hispanic). Vocalization data were collected using child-worn audio recorders over 34 observations spanning three successive school years, yielding 21.53 mean hours of audio recording per child. The rate of teacher vocalizations positively predicted the rate of children's speech-related vocalizations while the phonemic diversity of teacher vocalizations positively predicted the phonemic diversity of children's speech-related vocalizations. The phonemic diversity of children's speech-related vocalizations was a stronger predictor of end-of-year language abilities than the rate of children's speech-related vocalizations. Mediation analyses indicated that the phonemic diversity of teacher vocalizations was associated with children's receptive and expressive language abilities to the extent that it influenced the phonemic diversity of children's own speech-related vocalizations. The results suggest that qualitatively richer language input expands the phonemic diversity of children's speech, which in turn is associated with language abilities.

Computational approaches to understanding interaction and development

Audio-visual recording and location tracking produce enormous quantities of digital data with which researchers can document children's everyday interactions in naturalistic settings and assessment contexts. Machine learning and other computational approaches can produce replicable, automated measurements of these big behavioral data. The economies of scale afforded by repeated automated measurements offer a potent approach to investigating linkages between real-time behavior and developmental change. In our work, automated measurement of audio from child-worn recorders-which quantify the frequency of child and adult speech and index its phonemic complexity-are paired with ultrawide radio tracking of children's location and interpersonal orientation. Applications of objective measurement indicate the influence of adult behavior in both expert ratings of attachment behavior and ratings of autism severity, suggesting the role of dyadic factors in these "child" assessments. In the preschool classroom, location/orientation measures provide data-driven measures of children's social contact, fertile ground for vocal interactions. Both the velocity of children's movement toward one another and their social contact with one another evidence homophily: children with autism spectrum disorder, other developmental disabilities, and typically developing children were more likely to interact with children in the same group even in inclusive preschool classrooms designed to promote interchange between all children. In the vocal domain, the frequency of peer speech and the phonemic complexity of teacher speech predict the frequency and phonemic complexity of children's own speech over multiple timescales. Moreover, children's own speech predicts their assessed language abilities across disability groups, suggesting how everyday interactions facilitate development.

Testing the mid-range model: Attachment in a high risk sample

Infant attachment is a key predictor of later socioemotional functioning, but it is not clear how parental responsivity to infant expressive behavior is associated with attachment outcomes. A mid-range model of responsivity holds that both unresponsive and highly reactive parental behaviors lead to insecure and disorganized attachment. We examined the relationship between maternal (and infant) contingent responsivity and attachment in a high-risk sample. Participants were 625 infant-mother pairs from a longitudinal study of children with and without prenatal drug exposure and variable levels of associated social risks. Infant-mother pairs participated in the Face-to-Face/Still-Face paradigm (FFSF) at 4-months and in the Strange Situation Procedure (SSP) at 18-months. A model incorporating both linear and quadratic responsivity effects indicated that mothers who were either very high (reactive) or very low (unresponsive) in responsivity were more likely to have infants with disorganized attachment outcomes. While maternal responsivity was associated with attachment disorganization, no associations between maternal responsivity, and attachment security/insecurity were detected. Infant responsivity to mother was not associated with attachment outcomes. The findings suggest the importance of mid-range levels of maternal responsivity in the development of organized attachment among infants facing high levels of prenatal and social risk.

A Person- and Time-Varying Vector Autoregressive Model to Capture Interactive Infant-Mother Head Movement Dynamics

Head movement is an important but often overlooked component of emotion and social interaction. Examination of regularity and differences in head movements of infant-mother dyads over time and across dyads can shed light on whether and how mothers and infants alter their dynamics over the course of an interaction to adapt to each others. One way to study these emergent differences in dynamics is to allow parameters that govern the patterns of interactions to change over time, and according to person- and dyad-specific characteristics. Using two estimation approaches to implement variations of a vector-autoregressive model with time-varying coefficients, we investigated the dynamics of automatically-tracked head movements in mothers and infants during the Face-Face/Still-Face Procedure (SFP) with 24 infant-mother dyads. The first approach requires specification of a confirmatory model for the time-varying parameters as part of a state-space model, whereas the second approach handles the time-varying parameters in a semi-parametric ("mostly" model-free) fashion within a generalized additive modeling framework. Results suggested that infant-mother head movement dynamics varied in time both within and across episodes of the SFP, and varied based on infants' subsequently-assessed attachment security. Code for implementing the time-varying vector-autoregressive model using two R packages, dynr and mgcv, is provided.

A granular perspective on inclusion: Objectively measured interactions of preschoolers with and without autism

Children's preschool experiences have consequences for development. However, it is not clear how children's real-time interactions with peers affect their language development; nor is it clear whether these processes differ between children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and two other groups of children, those with general developmental delays (DD) and typically developing (TD) children. We used objective measures of movement and vocalizations to quantify children's real-time dyadic vocal interactions and quantify classroom social networks. Participants included 56 preschoolers (22 female; M = 50.14 months) in five inclusive classrooms for children with ASD or DD and their TD peers. Each class was observed monthly on two to five occasions. Overall, children vocalized more to peers who had vocalized more to them in the previous observation. These dyadic vocalization patterns were associated with group differences in social network analyses. Modularity, the cohesiveness of group ties, was lower among children with ASD than it was among TD children or children with DD. Individually, children with ASD exhibited lower total levels of vocalizations with peers (lower degree centrality) than TD children and children with DD. In an exploratory analysis with a subset of the participants, children's degree centrality was strongly associated with their end-of-year assessed language abilities, even when accounting for mean differences between groups. Findings highlight the impact peers and social networks play in real-time language use and in the developing language abilities of children with ASD in inclusion classrooms. LAY SUMMARY: This study objectively measured associations between children's peer vocal interactions and assessed language abilities in inclusion classrooms for children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and their peers. All children benefited from peers talking to them, but children with ASD were less central to classroom speech networks than were typically developing children. Children's centrality to social speech networks, regardless of ASD status, was associated with assessed language abilities.

Continuous measurement of attachment behavior: A multimodal view of the strange situation procedure

Infant attachment is a critical indicator of healthy infant social-emotional functioning, which is typically measured using the gold-standard Strange Situation Procedure (SSP). However, expert-based attachment classifications from the SSP are time-intensive (with respect both to expert training and rating), and do not provide an objective, continuous record of infant behavior. To continuously quantify predictors of key attachment behaviors and dimensions, multimodal movement and audio data were collected during the SSP. Forty-nine 1-year-olds and their mothers participated in the SSP and were tracked in three-dimensional space using five synchronized Kinect sensors; LENA recordings were used to quantify crying duration. Theoretically-informed multimodal measures of attachment-related behavior (e.g., dyadic contact duration, infant velocity of approach toward the mother, and infant crying) were used to predict expert rating scales and dimensional summaries of attachment outcomes. Stepwise regressions identified sets of multimodal objective measures that were significant predictors of eight of nine of the expert ratings of infant attachment behaviors in the SSP's two reunions. These multimodal measures predicted approximately half of the variance in the summary approach/avoidance and resistance/disorganization attachment dimensions. Incorporating all objective measures as predictors regardless of significance levels, predicted individual ratings within an average of one point on the original Likert scales. The results indicate that relatively inexpensive Kinect and LENA sensors can be harnessed to quantify attachment behavior in a key assessment protocol, suggesting the promise of objective measurement to understanding infant-parent interaction.

Parental Socialization of Emotion and Psychophysiological Arousal Patterns in Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder

Children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) are at considerable risk for difficulties with emotion regulation and related functioning. Although it is commonly accepted that parents contribute to adaptive child regulation, as indexed by observable child behavior, theory and recent evidence suggest that parenting may also influence relevant underlying child physiological tendencies. The current study examined concurrent associations between two elements of parental socialization of emotion and measures of both sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous system activity in 61 children with ASD aged 6 to 10 years. To index parental socialization, parents reported on their reactions to their children's negative emotions, and parental scaffolding was coded from a dyadic problem-solving task. Children's baseline respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA), electrodermal reactivity (EDA-R), and RSA reactivity in response to challenge were obtained as measures of the children's physiological activity. Regression analyses indicated that supportive parent reactions were related to higher child baseline RSA, a biomarker of regulatory capacity. Fewer unsupportive parent reactions and higher quality scaffolding were associated with higher EDA-R, a physiological index of inhibition. The identification of these concurrent associations represents a first step in understanding the complex and likely bidirectional interplay between parent socialization and child physiological reactivity and regulation in this high-risk population.

Theories of Autism and Autism Treatment from the DSM III Through the Present and Beyond: Impact on Research and Practice

The purely descriptive definition of autism introduced by the DSM III in 1980 marked a departure from previous DSM editions, which mixed phenomenological descriptions with psychoanalytic theories of etiology. This provided a blank slate upon which a variety of novel theories emerged to conceptualize autism and its treatment in the following four decades. In this article we examine the contribution of these different theoretical orientations with a focus on their impact on research and practice, areas of overlap and conflict between current theories, and their relevance in the context of the evolving landscape of scientific knowledge and societal views of autism.

The Association Between Parental Age and Autism-Related Outcomes in Children at High Familial Risk for Autism

Advanced parental age is a well-replicated risk factor for autism spectrum disorder (ASD), a neurodevelopmental condition with a complex and not well-defined etiology. We sought to determine parental age associations with ASD-related outcomes in subjects at high familial risk for ASD. A total of 397 younger siblings of a child with ASD, drawn from existing prospective high familial risk cohorts, were included in these analyses. Overall, we did not observe significant associations of advanced parental age with clinical ASD diagnosis, Social Responsiveness Scale, or Vineland Adaptive Behavior Scales scores. Instead, increased odds of ASD were found with paternal age < 30 years (adjusted odds ratio [AOR] = 2.83 and 95% confidence intervals [CI] = 1.14-7.02). Likewise, younger age (<30 years) for both parents was associated with decreases in Mullen Scales of Early Learning early learning composite (MSEL-ELC) scores (adjusted β = -9.62, 95% CI = -17.1 to -2.15). We also found significant increases in cognitive functioning based on MSEL-ELC scores with increasing paternal age (adjusted β associated with a 10-year increase in paternal age = 5.51, 95% CI = 0.70-10.3). Results suggest the potential for a different relationship between parental age and ASD-related outcomes in families with elevated ASD risk than has been observed in general population samples. Autism Res 2020, 13: 998-1010. © 2020 International Society for Autism Research, Wiley Periodicals, Inc. LAY SUMMARY: Previous work suggests that older parents have a greater likelihood of having a child with autism. We investigated this relationship in the younger siblings of families who already had a child with autism. In this setting, we found a higher likelihood of autism, as well as poorer cognitive scores, in the siblings with younger fathers, and higher cognitive scores in the siblings with older parents. These results suggest that parental age associations may differ based on children's familial risk for autism.

Validation of continuous measures of peer social interaction with self- and teacher-reports of friendship and social engagement

The present study validates a new procedure that combines continuous measures of proximity (Ubisense) and vocalization (LENA) into measures of peer social interaction. The data were collected from 4 boys and 5 girls (ages 2-3 at the outset) on 8 separate days (3-4 hours per day) over the course of an academic year. Teacher reports of friendship were positively correlated with continuous measures of dyadic social interaction (i.e., the amount of time two children spent in proximity to one another, talking). Self-reports of reciprocated friendship were marginally correlated with continuous measures of dyadic social interaction, but only in the spring semester (when children were older and their reports of friendship more reliable). At the individual level, peer nominations of likeability, and teacher ratings of sociability and withdrawal were correlated with continuous measures of social interaction (i.e., the amount of time a child spent in proximity to other children, talking).

Developmental Trajectories of Infants With Multiplex Family Risk for Autism: A Baby Siblings Research Consortium Study

Importance

Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is a neurodevelopmental disorder associated with different genetic etiologies. Prospective examination of familial-risk infants informs understanding of developmental trajectories preceding ASD diagnosis, potentially improving early detection.

Objective

To compare outcomes and trajectories associated with varying familial risk for ASD across the first 3 years of life.

Design, Setting, and Participants

This longitudinal, prospective cohort study used data from 11 sites in the Baby Siblings Research Consortium database. Data were collected between 2003 and 2015. Infants who were younger siblings of children with ASD were followed up for 3 years. Analyses were conducted in April 2018. Of the initial 1008 infants from the database, 573 were removed owing to missing necessary data, diagnostic discrepancies, or only having 1 older sibling.

Exposures

Number of siblings with ASD.

Main Outcomes and Measures

Outcomes included ASD symptoms, cognitive abilities, and adaptive skills. Diagnosis (ASD or no ASD) was given at 36-month outcome. The no-ASD group was classified as atypical (developmental delays and/or social-communication concerns) or typical for some analyses. Generalized linear mixed models examined developmental trajectories by ASD outcome and familial-risk group.

Results

In the 435 analyzed participants (age range at outcome, 32-43 months; 246 male [57%]), 355 (82%) were from single-incidence families (1 sibling with ASD and ≥1 sibling without ASD) and 80 (18%) were from multiplex families (≥2 siblings with ASD). There were no significant group differences in major demographics. Children from multiplex families were more likely than those from single-incidence families to be classified as having ASD (29 of 80 [36%] vs 57 of 355 [16%]; 95% CI, 9%-31%; P < .001) and less likely as typical (26 of 80 [33%] vs 201 of 355 [57%]; 95% CI, -36% to -13%; P < .001), with similar rates of atypical classifications (25 of 80 [31%] vs 97 of 355 [27%]; 95% CI, -7% to 15%; P = .49). There were no differences in ASD symptoms between multiplex and single-incidence groups after controlling for ASD outcome (95% CI, -0.02 to 0.20; P = .18). During infancy, differences in cognitive and adaptive abilities were observed based on ASD outcome in the single-incidence group only. At 36 months, the multiplex/no-ASD group had lower cognitive abilities than the single-incidence/no-ASD group (95% CI, -11.89 to -2.20; P = .02), and the multiplex group had lower adaptive abilities than individuals in the single-incidence group after controlling for ASD outcome (95% CI, -9.01 to -1.48; P = .02).

Conclusions and Relevance

Infants with a multiplex family history of ASD should be monitored early and often and referred for early intervention at the first sign of concern. Direct examination of genetic contributions to neurodevelopmental phenotypes in infants with familial risk for ASD is needed.

Respiratory sinus arrhythmia, parenting, and externalizing behavior in children with autism spectrum disorder

Children with autism spectrum disorder exhibit significant difficulties with emotion regulation. Respiratory sinus arrhythmia is a biomarker for processes related to emotion regulation, with higher baseline rates linked to beneficial outcomes. Although reduction in respiratory sinus arrhythmia in response to challenge can index adaptive processes in community samples, excessive withdrawal may suggest loss of regulatory control among children with clinical concerns. Psychophysiological risk for problems may be protected against or exacerbated by parenting environments more or less supportive of the development of children's regulatory competence. Respiratory sinus arrhythmia was examined in 61 children with autism spectrum disorder ages 6-10 years in relation to externalizing behavior, and parenting was considered as a moderator. Respiratory sinus arrhythmia was obtained during laboratory tasks, and positive parenting, negative parenting, and children's externalizing behaviors were each indexed through multiple methods. Respiratory sinus arrhythmia reactivity interacted with negative, but not positive parenting. Higher respiratory sinus arrhythmia reactivity was associated with more externalizing behavior under conditions of higher negative parenting, but with lower externalizing behavior at lower levels of negative parenting. Similarly, negative parenting was only associated with externalizing behaviors in the context of high child respiratory sinus arrhythmia reactivity. Implications for our understanding of emotion regulation in children with autism spectrum disorder, and for related interventions, are discussed.

Sympathetic-Parasympathetic Interaction and Externalizing Problems in Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder

Children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) exhibit significant difficulties with emotion regulation and reactivity, which may be linked to underlying psychophysiology. The present study examined associations between autonomic nervous system activity and individual differences in externalizing behavior problems in children with ASD. A multisystem approach was adopted to consider the interplay between markers of sympathetic (electrodermal reactivity-EDA-R) and parasympathetic reactivity (respiratory sinus arrhythmia reactivity-RSA-R) in relation to behavioral challenges. Fifty-two children with ASD ages 6-10 years contributed complete psychophysiological data. Measures of EDA-R and RSA-R (RSA withdrawal) were obtained in response to a laboratory challenge task and parents reported on child externalizing behavior problems using a standardized questionnaire and a structured clinical interview. An equifinality model was supported, with two distinct psychophysiological pathways linked to heightened externalizing behavior problems. Greater RSA-R was associated with more externalizing problems in the context of higher levels of EDA-R, and lower EDA-R was associated with increased externalizing problems at lower levels of RSA-R. Findings underscore the importance of considering the role of psychophysiology in the unfolding of comorbid externalizing problems in children with ASD. Potential implications for tailoring coregulatory supports are discussed. Autism Res 2019, 12: 1805-1816. © 2019 International Society for Autism Research, Wiley Periodicals, Inc. LAY SUMMARY: Children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) exhibit elevated rates of challenging behavior. This study identified specific psychophysiological profiles (low sympathetic-low parasympathetic reactivity, and high sympathetic-high parasympathetic reactivity) that may place these children at greater risk for behavior problems. Findings have implications for better understanding behavioral challenges in children with ASD, and for tailoring supports to address underlying psychophysiology.

Early motor abilities in infants at heightened versus low risk for ASD: A Baby Siblings Research Consortium (BSRC) study

Research has identified early appearing differences in gross and fine motor abilities in infants at heightened risk (HR) for autism spectrum disorder (ASD) because they are the younger siblings of children with ASD, and it suggests that such differences may be especially apparent among those HR infants themselves eventually diagnosed with ASD. The present study examined overall and item-level performance on the gross (GM) and fine motor (FM) subscales of the Mullen Scales of Early Learning (MSEL) administered at 6 months to a large, geographically diverse sample of HR infants with varying developmental outcomes (ASD, elevated ADOS without ASD, low ADOS without ASD) and to infants with low ASD risk (low risk [LR]). We also explored whether motor abilities assessed at 6 months predicted ASD symptom severity at 36 months. FM (but not GM) performance distinguished all 3 HR groups from LR infants with the weakest performance observed in the HR-Elevated ADOS children, who exhibited multiple differences from both LR and other HR infants in both gross and fine motor skills. Finally, 6-month FM (but not GM) scores significant predicted 36-month ADOS severity scores in the HR group; but no evidence was found of specific early appearing motor signs associated with a later ASD diagnosis. Vulnerabilities in infants' fine and gross motor skills may have significant consequences for later development not only in the motor domain but in other domains. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved).

Continuous measurement of dynamic classroom social interactions

Human observations can only capture a portion of ongoing classroom social activity, and are not ideal for understanding how children’s interactions are spatially structured. Here we demonstrate how social interaction can be investigated by modeling automated continuous measurements of children’s location and movement using a commercial system based on radio frequency identification. Continuous location data were obtained from 16 five-year-olds observed during three 1-h classroom free play observations. Illustrative coordinate mapping indicated that boys and girls tended to cluster in different physical locations in the classroom, but there was no suggestion of gender differences in children’s velocity (i.e., speed of movement). To detect social interaction, we present the radial distribution function, an index of when children were in social contact at greater than chance levels. Rank-order plots indicated that children were in social contact tens to hundreds of times more with some peers than others. We illustrate the use of social ties (higher than average levels of social contact) to visualize the classroom network. Analysis of the network suggests that transitivity is a potential lens through which to examine male, female, and mixed-sex cliques. The illustrative findings suggest the validity of the new measurement approach by re-examining well-established gender segregation findings from a new perspective.

A break in parental interaction does not affect the temporal dependency of infant social engagement, but disrupts non-social engagement

Infant looking patterns during interaction offer an early window into social and nonsocial engagement. Recent evidence indicates that infant looks exhibit temporal dependency-one look duration predicts the next look duration. It is unknown, however, whether temporal dependency emerges as infants structure their own looking or whether it is influenced by interaction. We examined whether a perturbation of social interaction affected temporal dependency. Using the Face-to-Face/Still-Face procedure, we compared temporal dependency during parental interaction (the Face-to-Face & Reunion episodes) to parental non-responsiveness (the Still-Face episode). Overall, the durations of successive infant looks were predictable; past behavior constrained current behavior. The duration of one look at the parent (Face Look) predicted the duration of the next Face Look. Likewise, the duration of a look at any place that was not the parent's face (Away Look) predicted the duration of the next Away Look. The temporal dependency of Face Looks (social engagement) was unaffected by the Still-Face perturbation, but the temporal dependency of Away Looks (nonsocial engagement) declined during the Still-Face. Infant temporal structuring of engagement during social looking is not dependent on parental interaction while the disruption of interaction affects infants' structuring of their own non-social engagement.

A year in words: The dynamics and consequences of language experiences in an intervention classroom

Children from low SES backgrounds hear, on average, fewer words at home than those from high SES backgrounds. This word gap is associated with widening achievement differences in children’s language abilities and school readiness. However relatively little is known about adult and child speech in childcare settings, in which approximately 30% of American children are enrolled. We examined the influence of teacher and peer language input on children’s in-class language use and language development in an intervention classroom for low-SES, high-risk 2- to 3-year-olds. Over the course of a year, day-long recordings of the classroom were collected weekly with LENA recorders. Using LENA software algorithms, we found that language input from peers was positively related to children’s in-class language use, both in-the-moment and over the course of each day, as were the number of conversational turns in which children and teachers engaged Both peer input and conversational turns with teachers were also positively related to children’s language development rates, as indexed by increases in vocabulary size. Together these results indicate the importance of child-specific rates of classroom language input in the language development of high-risk, preschoolers.

Representing Sudden Shifts in Intensive Dyadic Interaction Data Using Differential Equation Models with Regime Switching

A growing number of social scientists have turned to differential equations as a tool for capturing the dynamic interdependence among a system of variables. Current tools for fitting differential equation models do not provide a straightforward mechanism for diagnosing evidence for qualitative shifts in dynamics, nor do they provide ways of identifying the timing and possible determinants of such shifts. In this paper, we discuss regime-switching differential equation models, a novel modeling framework for representing abrupt changes in a system of differential equation models. Estimation was performed by combining the Kim filter (Kim and Nelson State-space models with regime switching: classical and Gibbs-sampling approaches with applications, MIT Press, Cambridge, 1999) and a numerical differential equation solver that can handle both ordinary and stochastic differential equations. The proposed approach was motivated by the need to represent discrete shifts in the movement dynamics of [Formula: see text] mother-infant dyads during the Strange Situation Procedure (SSP), a behavioral assessment where the infant is separated from and reunited with the mother twice. We illustrate the utility of a novel regime-switching differential equation model in representing children's tendency to exhibit shifts between the goal of staying close to their mothers and intermittent interest in moving away from their mothers to explore the room during the SSP. Results from empirical model fitting were supplemented with a Monte Carlo simulation study to evaluate the use of information criterion measures to diagnose sudden shifts in dynamics.

Objective measurement of head movement differences in children with and without autism spectrum disorder

Background

Deficits in motor movement in children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) have typically been characterized qualitatively by human observers. Although clinicians have noted the importance of atypical head positioning (e.g. social peering and repetitive head banging) when diagnosing children with ASD, a quantitative understanding of head movement in ASD is lacking. Here, we conduct a quantitative comparison of head movement dynamics in children with and without ASD using automated, person-independent computer-vision based head tracking (Zface). Because children with ASD often exhibit preferential attention to nonsocial versus social stimuli, we investigated whether children with and without ASD differed in their head movement dynamics depending on stimulus sociality.

Methods

The current study examined differences in head movement dynamics in children with (n = 21) and without ASD (n = 21). Children were video-recorded while watching a 16-min video of social and nonsocial stimuli. Three dimensions of rigid head movement—pitch (head nods), yaw (head turns), and roll (lateral head inclinations)—were tracked using Zface. The root mean square of pitch, yaw, and roll was calculated to index the magnitude of head angular displacement (quantity of head movement) and angular velocity (speed).

Results

Compared with children without ASD, children with ASD exhibited greater yaw displacement, indicating greater head turning, and greater velocity of yaw and roll, indicating faster head turning and inclination. Follow-up analyses indicated that differences in head movement dynamics were specific to the social rather than the nonsocial stimulus condition.

Conclusions

Head movement dynamics (displacement and velocity) were greater in children with ASD than in children without ASD, providing a quantitative foundation for previous clinical reports. Head movement differences were evident in lateral (yaw and roll) but not vertical (pitch) movement and were specific to a social rather than nonsocial condition. When presented with social stimuli, children with ASD had higher levels of head movement and moved their heads more quickly than children without ASD. Children with ASD may use head movement to modulate their perception of social scenes.

Electronic supplementary material

The online version of this article (10.1186/s13229-018-0198-4) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

The Effect of Parenting Style on Social Smiling in Infants at High and Low Risk for ASD

This study examined how parenting style at 9 months predicts growth in infant social engagement (i.e., social smiling) between 9 and 18 months during a free-play interaction in infants at high (HR-infants) and low (LR-infants) familial risk for autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Results indicated that across all infants, higher levels of maternal responsiveness were concurrently associated with higher levels of social smiling, while higher levels of maternal directiveness predicted slower growth in social smiling. When accounting for maternal directiveness, which was higher in mothers of HR-infants, HR-infants exhibited greater growth in social smiling than LR-infants. Overall, each parenting style appears to make a unique contribution to the development of social engagement in infants at high- and low-risk for ASD.

Re-examination of Oostenbroek et al. (2016): evidence for neonatal imitation of tongue protrusion

The meaning, mechanism, and function of imitation in early infancy have been actively discussed since Meltzoff and Moore's (1977) report of facial and manual imitation by human neonates. Oostenbroek et al. (2016) claim to challenge the existence of early imitation and to counter all interpretations so far offered. Such claims, if true, would have implications for theories of social-cognitive development. Here we identify 11 flaws in Oostenbroek et al.'s experimental design that biased the results toward null effects. We requested and obtained the authors' raw data. Contrary to the authors' conclusions, new analyses reveal significant tongue-protrusion imitation at all four ages tested (1, 3, 6, and 9 weeks old). We explain how the authors missed this pattern and offer five recommendations for designing future experiments. Infant imitation raises fundamental issues about action representation, social learning, and brain-behavior relations. The debate about the origins and development of imitation reflects its importance to theories of developmental science.

Empathic responding in preschool-aged children with familial risk for autism

Individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) show deficits in social and emotional reciprocity, which often include empathic responding. The younger siblings of children with ASD (high-risk siblings) are at elevated risk for ASD and for subclinical deficits in social-emotional functioning. Higher levels of empathy in high-risk siblings during the second and third years of life predict fewer ASD symptoms and likelihood of diagnosis. We conducted a multi-method investigation of empathic responding to an examiner's accident in 30 low-risk and 48 high-risk siblings with (n = 12) and without ASD outcomes (n = 36) at 4-6 years of age. Empathic responding was measured through behavioral observation and parent report. Prosocial behavior did not differ by ASD outcome. Children with ASD exhibited lower levels of personal distress than high-risk and low-risk siblings without ASD. Per parent report, high-risk siblings without ASD demonstrated higher levels of empathic responding than low-risk children, while the ASD group did not differ from children without ASD on this measure. Higher levels of observed empathic concern, but not prosocial behavior, were associated with lower Social Affect scores on the Autism Diagnostic Observation Schedule in high-risk children. Results suggest that ASD diagnosis and symptoms are associated with reduced emotional responsiveness to an adult's distress, but not associated with deficits in prosocial behavior at preschool age. Results do not support the idea that empathic responding is negatively impacted in a broader autism phenotype. Findings extend previous research by suggesting that empathy may be a protective factor in the social-emotional development of children with familial risk for ASD. Autism Res 2017, 10: 1621-1628. © 2017 International Society for Autism Research, Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Gently does it: Humans outperform a software classifier in recognizing subtle, nonstereotypical facial expressions

According to dominant theories of affect, humans innately and universally express a set of emotions using specific configurations of prototypical facial activity. Accordingly, thousands of studies have tested emotion recognition using sets of highly intense and stereotypical facial expressions, yet their incidence in real life is virtually unknown. In fact, a commonplace experience is that emotions are expressed in subtle and nonprototypical forms. Such facial expressions are at the focus of the current study. In Experiment 1, we present the development and validation of a novel stimulus set consisting of dynamic and subtle emotional facial displays conveyed without constraining expressers to using prototypical configurations. Although these subtle expressions were more challenging to recognize than prototypical dynamic expressions, they were still well recognized by human raters, and perhaps most importantly, they were rated as more ecological and naturalistic than the prototypical expressions. In Experiment 2, we examined the characteristics of subtle versus prototypical expressions by subjecting them to a software classifier, which used prototypical basic emotion criteria. Although the software was highly successful at classifying prototypical expressions, it performed very poorly at classifying the subtle expressions. Further validation was obtained from human expert face coders: Subtle stimuli did not contain many of the key facial movements present in prototypical expressions. Together, these findings suggest that emotions may be successfully conveyed to human viewers using subtle nonprototypical expressions. Although classic prototypical facial expressions are well recognized, they appear less naturalistic and may not capture the richness of everyday emotional communication. (PsycINFO Database Record

A Branch-and-Bound Framework for Unsupervised Common Event Discovery

Event discovery aims to discover a temporal segment of interest, such as human behavior, actions or activities. Most approaches to event discovery within or between time series use supervised learning. This becomes problematic when some relevant event labels are unknown, are difficult to detect, or not all possible combinations of events have been anticipated. To overcome these problems, this paper explores Common Event Discovery (CED), a new problem that aims to discover common events of variable-length segments in an unsupervised manner. A potential solution to CED is searching over all possible pairs of segments, which would incur a prohibitive quartic cost. In this paper, we propose an efficient branch-and-bound (B&B) framework that avoids exhaustive search while guaranteeing a globally optimal solution. To this end, we derive novel bounding functions for various commonality measures and provide extensions to multiple commonality discovery and accelerated search. The B&B framework takes as input any multidimensional signal that can be quantified into histograms. A generalization of the framework can be readily applied to discover events at the same or different times (synchrony and event commonality, respectively). We consider extensions to video search and supervised event detection. The effectiveness of the B&B framework is evaluated in motion capture of deliberate behavior and in video of spontaneous facial behavior in diverse interpersonal contexts: interviews, small groups of young adults, and parent-infant face-to-face interaction.

Temporal Dependency and the Structure of Early Looking

Although looking time is used to assess infant perceptual and cognitive processing, little is known about the temporal structure of infant looking. To shed light on this temporal structure, 127 three-month-olds were assessed in an infant-controlled habituation procedure and presented with a pre-recorded display of a woman addressing the infant using infant-directed speech. Previous individual look durations positively predicted subsequent look durations over a six look window, suggesting a temporal dependency between successive infant looks. The previous look duration continued to predict the subsequent look duration after accounting for habituation-linked declines in look duration, and when looks were separated by an inter-trial interval in which no stimulus was displayed. Individual differences in temporal dependency, the strength of associations between consecutive look durations, are distinct from individual differences in mean infant look duration. Nevertheless, infants with stronger temporal dependency had briefer mean look durations, a potential index of stimulus processing. Temporal dependency was evident not only between individual infant looks but between the durations of successive habituation trials (total looking within a trial). Finally, temporal dependency was evident in associations between the last look at the habituation stimulus and the first look at a novel test stimulus. Thus temporal dependency was evident across multiple timescales (individual looks and trials comprised of multiple individual looks) and persisted across conditions including brief periods of no stimulus presentation and changes from a familiar to novel stimulus. Associations between consecutive look durations over multiple timescales and stimuli suggest a temporal structure of infant attention that has been largely ignored in previous work on infant looking.