Evaluating Users' Experiences of a Child Multimodal Wearable Device: Mixed Methods Approach.

BACKGROUND: Wearable devices permit the continuous, unobtrusive collection of data from children in their natural environments and can transform our understanding of child development. Although the use of wearable devices has begun to emerge in research involving children, few studies have considered families' experiences and perspectives of participating in research of this kind. OBJECTIVE: Through a mixed methods approach, we assessed parents' and children's experiences of using a new wearable device in the home environment. The wearable device was designed specifically for use with infants and young children, and it integrates audio, electrocardiogram, and motion sensors. METHODS: In study 1, semistructured phone interviews were conducted with 42 parents of children aged 1 month to 9.5 years who completed 2 day-long recordings using the device, which the children wore on a specially designed shirt. In study 2, a total of 110 parents of children aged 2 months to 5.5 years responded to a questionnaire assessing their experience of completing 3 day-long device recordings in the home. Guided by the Digital Health Checklist, we assessed parental responses from both studies in relation to the following three key domains: (1) access and usability, (2) privacy, and (3) risks and benefits. RESULTS: In study 1, most parents viewed the device as easy to use and safe and remote visits as convenient. Parents' views on privacy related to the audio recordings were more varied. The use of machine learning algorithms (vs human annotators) in the analysis of the audio data, the ability to stop recordings at any time, and the view that the recordings reflected ordinary family life were some reasons cited by parents who expressed minimal, if any, privacy concerns. Varied risks and benefits were also reported, including perceived child comfort or discomfort, the need to adjust routines to accommodate the study, the understanding gained from the study procedures, and the parent's and child's enjoyment of study participation. In study 2, parents' ratings on 5 close-ended items yielded a similar pattern of findings. Compared with a "neutral" rating, parents were significantly more likely to agree that (1) device instructions were helpful and clear (t109=-45.98; P<.001), (2) they felt comfortable putting the device on their child (t109=-22.22; P<.001), and (3) they felt their child was safe while wearing the device (t109=-34.48; P<.001). They were also less likely to worry about the audio recordings gathered by the device (t108=6.14; P<.001), whereas parents' rating of the burden of the study procedures did not differ significantly from a "neutral" rating (t109=-0.16; P=.87). CONCLUSIONS: On the basis of parents' feedback, several concrete changes can be implemented to improve this new wearable platform and, ultimately, parents' and children's experiences of using child wearable devices in the home setting.

Preliminary Technical Validation of LittleBeats™: A Multimodal Sensing Platform to Capture Cardiac Physiology, Motion, and Vocalizations.

Across five studies, we present the preliminary technical validation of an infant-wearable platform, LittleBeats™, that integrates electrocardiogram (ECG), inertial measurement unit (IMU), and audio sensors. Each sensor modality is validated against data from gold-standard equipment using established algorithms and laboratory tasks. Interbeat interval (IBI) data obtained from the LittleBeats™ ECG sensor indicate acceptable mean absolute percent error rates for both adults (Study 1, N = 16) and infants (Study 2, N = 5) across low- and high-challenge sessions and expected patterns of change in respiratory sinus arrythmia (RSA). For automated activity recognition (upright vs. walk vs. glide vs. squat) using accelerometer data from the LittleBeats™ IMU (Study 3, N = 12 adults), performance was good to excellent, with smartphone (industry standard) data outperforming LittleBeats™ by less than 4 percentage points. Speech emotion recognition (Study 4, N = 8 adults) applied to LittleBeats™ versus smartphone audio data indicated a comparable performance, with no significant difference in error rates. On an automatic speech recognition task (Study 5, N = 12 adults), the best performing algorithm yielded relatively low word error rates, although LittleBeats™ (4.16%) versus smartphone (2.73%) error rates were somewhat higher. Together, these validation studies indicate that LittleBeats™ sensors yield a data quality that is largely comparable to those obtained from gold-standard devices and established protocols used in prior research.

Maternal autonomy support and intrusive control in the United States and China: Moment-to-moment associations with preschoolers' agency and defeat.

This study examines the moment-to-moment within-person associations between maternal and child behaviors during a challenging puzzle task and compares these associations between mother-child dyads from the United States (n = 99, 52 boys, Mchild age = 56.05 months, SD = 6.44) and China (n = 101, 46 boys, Mchild age = 57.41 months, SD = 6.58). Maternal autonomy support and intrusive control and child agency and defeat were rated in 15-s intervals by native and bicultural coders. Country was examined as a moderator of the moment-to-moment within-person associations between maternal and child behaviors. The results showed that for both U.S. and Chinese dyads, increases in maternal intrusive control predicted subsequent decreases in child agency, and increases in child defeat predicted subsequent increases in maternal autonomy support. Furthermore, increases in maternal autonomy support predicted subsequent increases in child defeat, but for the Chinese dyads only. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

Associations between infant amygdala functional connectivity and social engagement following a stressor: A preliminary investigation.

Functional architecture of the infant brain, especially functional connectivity (FC) within the amygdala network and between the amygdala and other networks (i.e., default-mode [DMN] and salience [SAL] networks), provides a neural basis for infant socioemotional functioning. Yet, little is known about the extent to which early within- and between-network amygdala FC are related to infant stress recovery across the first year of life. In this study, we examined associations between amygdala FC (i.e., within-network amygdala connectivity, and between-network amygdala connectivity with the DMN and SAL) at 3 months and infant recovery from a mild social stressor at 3, 6 and 9 months. At 3 months, thirty-five infants (13 girls) underwent resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging during natural sleep. Infants and their mothers completed the still-face paradigm at 3, 6, and 9 months, and infant stress recovery was assessed at each time point as the proportion of infant social engagement during the reunion episode. Bivariate correlations indicated that greater positive within-network amygdala FC and greater positive amygdala-SAL FC, but not amygdala-DMN FC, at 3 months predicted lower levels of stress recovery at 3 and 6 months, but were nonsignificant at 9 months. These findings provide preliminary evidence that early functional synchronization within the amygdala network, as well as segregation between the amygdala and the SAL, may contribute to infant stress recovery in the context of infant-mother interaction.

Functional neural network connectivity at 3 months predicts infant-mother dyadic flexibility during play at 6 months.

Early functioning of neural networks likely underlies the flexible switching between internal and external orientation and may be key to the infant's ability to effectively engage in social interactions. To test this hypothesis, we examined the association between infants' neural networks at 3 months and infant-mother dyadic flexibility (denoting the structural variability of their interaction dynamics) at 3, 6, and 9 months. Participants included thirty-five infants (37% girls) and their mothers (87% White). At 3 months, infants participated in a resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging session, and functional connectivity (FC) within the default mode (DMN) and salience (SN) networks, as well as DMN-SN internetwork FC, were derived using a seed-based approach. When infants were 3, 6, and 9 months, infant-mother dyads completed the Still-Face Paradigm where their individual engagement behaviors were observed and used to quantify dyadic flexibility using state space analysis. Results revealed that greater within-DMN FC, within-SN FC, and DMN-SN anticorrelation at 3 months predicted greater dyadic flexibility at 6 months, but not at 3 and 9 months. Findings suggest that early synchronization and interaction between neural networks underlying introspection and salience detection may support infants' flexible social interactions as they become increasingly active and engaged social partners.

Toddler-mother attachment moderates adolescents' behavioral and neural evaluation of trustworthiness.

This longitudinal study examined the prospective association between toddler-mother attachment to adolescents' (n = 52; 34 boys; Mage = 13.22 years; 90% White) behavioral and neural responses during the evaluation of trustworthiness from unfamiliar, emotionally neutral faces. At 33 months, toddler-mother attachment status (secure vs insecure classification) was assessed using a modified Strange Situation procedure. Results revealed that attachment moderated the processing of trustworthiness facial cues. As faces became less trustworthy, adolescents with a secure (vs insecure) attachment history rated the faces as correspondingly less trustworthy and showed increasing (vs overall blunted) activation in brain regions involved in trustworthiness perception (i.e. bilateral amygdala, bilateral fusiform, right anterior insula and right posterior superior temporal sulcus). Findings suggest that a secure compared with insecure child-mother attachment in toddlerhood may be associated with greater capacity for, or openness to, processing potentially negative social information at both the behavioral and neural levels during adolescence.

Dynamic fluctuations in maternal cardiac vagal tone moderate moment-to-moment associations between children's negative behavior and maternal emotional support.

Our primary objective was to examine the extent to which moment-to-moment associations between preschool-aged children's behavior and maternal emotional support differed for mothers showing different levels of parasympathetic engagement. We used behavioral observations of maternal and child behavior and maternal changes in cardiac vagal tone assessed via respiratory sinus arrhythmia in 15-s intervals during a 5-min challenging puzzle task (N = 121 dyads; 65 girls, Mage = 4.42 years). Results from multilevel models showed that increases in children's defeat (e.g., frustration, task withdrawal) coupled with maternal vagal augmentation (an index of social engagement) in a given 15-s interval predicted increases in maternal support in the next interval, whereas increases in children's defeat coupled with maternal vagal withdrawal (an index of physiological arousal) in a given 15-s interval did not predict increases in maternal support. Findings suggest that vagal augmentation in mothers may operate together with fluctuations in children's negative behaviors to predict supportive parenting in real time. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).

The role of early attachment and parental presence in adolescent behavioral and neurobiological regulation.

Early attachment shapes brain development underlying emotion regulation. Given that sensitivity to affective cues is heightened during adolescence and effective emotion regulation strategies continue to develop, it is imperative to examine the role of early attachment and parental influence on adolescent regulation. Fifty-one children (M age=32.61 months) participated in a modified Strange Situation with their mother and approximately 10 years later (M age =13.2 years) completed an fMRI scan during which they were presented with appetitive and aversive affective cues (images of adolescent interactions) during a Go-Nogo task. They completed the task alone and in the presence of a parent. Behavioral multilevel models and whole-brain analyses showed attachment-related patterns, such that affective cues elicited greater behavioral and neural dysregulation in insecure (versus secure) adolescents.Furthermore, parental presence buffered behavioral and neural dysregulation toward socially aversive cues for adolescents with early insecure attachment, underscoring the salience of caregivers across development in promoting regulation in their offspring.

Mother-child mutually responsive orientation and real-time physiological coordination.

From a biobehavioral framework, mother-child physiological and behavioral coordination are interdependent processes that contribute to children's socioemotional development. Little is known, however, about the temporal pattern of real-time physiological coordination or its associations with global levels of mother-child behavioral coordination. We addressed these gaps using data from 110 mothers and their preschool-aged children (56 girls, Mage  = 53.63 months, SD = 7.74) across two play tasks (i.e., puzzle, pretend play). Using indices of maternal and child parasympathetic response (i.e., changes in respiratory sinus arrhythmia [RSA]) across 15-s epochs, we tested the extent to which within-dyad physiological coordination was contingent on mutually responsive orientation (MRO; a global composite of behavioral coordination and shared positive affect assessed via observer ratings across each play task). Results from a series of two-level coupled autoregressive models indicated that MRO moderated mother-lead RSA coordination, and this pattern emerged across both play tasks. Controlling for stability of within-person RSA changes, increases in maternal RSA at time t - 1 predicted increases in children's RSA at time t, but only for dyads averaging higher MRO during play. No interactions of MRO emerged for child-lead RSA coordination. Findings highlight the importance of dyadic behavioral processes for mother-child physiological coordination.

A COMPARISON STUDY ON INFANT-PARENT VOICE DIARIZATION.

We design a framework for studying prelinguistic child voice from 3 to 24 months based on state-of-the-art algorithms in diarization. Our system consists of a time-invariant feature extractor, a context-dependent embedding generator, and a classifier. We study the effect of swapping out different components of the system, as well as changing loss function, to find the best performance. We also present a multiple-instance learning technique that allows us to pre-train our parameters on larger datasets with coarser segment boundary labels. We found that our best system achieved 43.8% DER on test dataset, compared to 55.4% DER achieved by LENA software. We also found that using convolutional feature extractor instead of logmel features significantly increases the performance of neural diarization.

Analysis of acoustic and voice quality features for the classification of infant and mother vocalizations.

Classification of infant and parent vocalizations, particularly emotional vocalizations, is critical to understanding how infants learn to regulate emotions in social dyadic processes. This work is an experimental study of classifiers, features, and data augmentation strategies applied to the task of classifying infant and parent vocalization types. Our data were recorded both in the home and in the laboratory. Infant vocalizations were manually labeled as cry, fus (fuss), lau (laugh), bab (babble) or scr (screech), while parent (mostly mother) vocalizations were labeled as ids (infant-directed speech), ads (adult-directed speech), pla (playful), rhy (rhythmic speech or singing), lau (laugh) or whi (whisper). Linear discriminant analysis (LDA) was selected as a baseline classifier, because it gave the highest accuracy in a previously published study covering part of this corpus. LDA was compared to two neural network architectures: a two-layer fully-connected network (FCN), and a convolutional neural network with self-attention (CNSA). Baseline features extracted using the OpenSMILE toolkit were augmented by extra voice quality, phonetic, and prosodic features, each targeting perceptual features of one or more of the vocalization types. Three web data augmentation and transfer learning methods were tested: pre-training of network weights for a related task (adult emotion classification), augmentation of under-represented classes using data uniformly sampled from other corpora, and augmentation of under-represented classes using data selected by a minimum cross-corpus information difference criterion. Feature selection using Fisher scores and experiments of using weighted and unweighted samplers were also tested. Two datasets were evaluated: a benchmark dataset (CRIED) and our own corpus. In terms of unweighted-average recall of CRIED dataset, the CNSA achieved the best UAR compared with previous studies. In terms of classification accuracy, weighted F1, and macro F1 of our own dataset, the neural networks both significantly outperformed LDA; the FCN slightly (but not significantly) outperformed the CNSA. Cross-examining features selected by different feature selection algorithms permits a type of post-hoc feature analysis, in which the most important acoustic features for each binary type discrimination are listed. Examples of each vocalization type of overlapped features were selected, and their spectrograms are presented, and discussed with respect to the type-discriminative acoustic features selected by various algorithms. MFCC, log Mel Frequency Band Energy, LSP frequency, and F1 are found to be the most important spectral envelope features; F0 is found to be the most important prosodic feature.

Zoom, Zoom, Baby! Assessing Mother-Infant Interaction During the Still Face Paradigm and Infant Language Development via a Virtual Visit Procedure.

The COVID-19 pandemic has necessitated innovations in data collection protocols, including use of virtual or remote visits. Although developmental scientists used virtual visits prior to COVID-19, validation of virtual assessments of infant socioemotional and language development are lacking. We aimed to fill this gap by validating a virtual visit protocol that assesses mother and infant behavior during the Still Face Paradigm (SFP) and infant receptive and expressive communication using the Bayley-III Screening Test. Validation was accomplished through comparisons of data (i.e., proportions of missing data for a given task; observed infant and maternal behaviors) collected during in-person laboratory visits and virtual visits conducted via Zoom. Of the 119 mother-infant dyads who participated, 73 participated in lab visits only, 13 participated in virtual visits only, and 33 dyads participated in a combination of lab and virtual visits across four time points (3, 6, 9, and 12 months). Maternal perspectives of, and preferences for, virtual visits were also assessed. Proportions of missing data were higher during virtual visits, particularly for assessments of infant receptive communication. Nonetheless, comparisons of virtual and laboratory visits within a given time point (3, 6, or 9 months) indicated that mothers and infants showed similar proportions of facial expressions, vocalizations and directions of gaze during the SFP and infants showed similar and expected patterns of behavioral change across SFP episodes. Infants also demonstrated comparable expressive and receptive communicative abilities across virtual and laboratory assessments. Maternal reports of ease and preference for virtual visits varied by infant age, with mothers of 12-month-old infants reporting, on average, less ease of virtual visits and a preference for in-person visits. Results are discussed in terms of feasibility and validity of virtual visits for assessing infant socioemotional and language development, and broader advantages and disadvantages of virtual visits are also considered.

Direct and indirect pathways from maternal and paternal empathy to young children's socioemotional functioning.

In the present article, we investigated the contributions of maternal and paternal empathy to child socioemotional competence both directly and indirectly through parents' emotion socialization practices using data from two longitudinal studies: Study 1 (n = 122, 61 girls, M age = 33 months) and Study 2 (n = 60, 31 girls; M age = 27 months). Results indicated that parental empathy had an indirect effect on children's positive peer relations (Study 1 and Study 2) via more supportive reactions to children's negative emotions. No indirect effects of parental empathy emerged in the models examining parents' nonsupportive reactions to children's emotions, although parental empathy showed a direct association with greater child empathy (Study 2). Moreover, paths composing indirect and direct effects did not significantly differ as a function of parent gender. The findings suggest that mothers' and fathers' dispositional empathy contribute in similar ways to young children's socioemotional competence. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2020 APA, all rights reserved).

Maternal emotion socialization in early childhood predicts adolescents' amygdala-vmPFC functional connectivity to emotion faces.

Guided by Eisenberg, Cumberland, and Spinrad's (1998) conceptual framework, we examined multiple components of maternal emotion socialization (i.e., reactions to children's negative emotion, emotion talk, emotional expressiveness) at 33 months of age as predictors of adolescents' amygdala-vmPFC connectivity and amygdala activation when labeling and passively observing angry and happy faces. For angry faces, more positive maternal emotion socialization behaviors predicted (a) less positive amygdala-vmPFC connectivity, which may reflect more mature vmPFC downregulation of the amygdala activation underlying implicit emotion regulation, and (b) more amygdala activation, which may reflect higher sensitivity to others' emotional cues. Associations between negative emotion socialization behaviors and neural responses to angry faces were nonsignificant, and findings for the models predicting neural responses to happy faces showed a less consistent pattern. By expanding Eisenberg et al.'s (1998) framework to consider neural processing of negative emotions, the current findings point toward the potential long-term implications of positive emotion socialization experiences during early childhood for optimal functioning of the amygdala-vmPFC circuitry during adolescence. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2020 APA, all rights reserved).

Dynamics of mother-adolescent and father-adolescent autonomy and control during a conflict discussion task.

Adolescence is characterized by increases in autonomy, yet we have limited knowledge about how parents and adolescents may navigate this transition in real time. We assessed dynamic bidirectional associations between parental behavior-specifically, autonomy support and control-and adolescent autonomy in both mother-adolescent and father-adolescent dyads during a 10-min conflict discussion task (N = 86, 32 girls). Observers rated parental autonomy support, parental control, and adolescent autonomy on 4-point scales in 30-s epochs. Residual dynamic structural equation (RDSEM) models revealed that increases in paternal autonomy support in a given 30-s epoch predicted increases in adolescent autonomy in the next epoch, after controlling for stability in father and adolescent behavior from one epoch to the next. Further, increases in adolescent autonomy in a given 30-s epoch predicted increases in maternal control in the next epoch. Findings highlight the importance of investigating bidirectional associations in parent-adolescent interactions as well as considering the divergent roles that mothers and fathers may play in the socialization of adolescent autonomy. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2020 APA, all rights reserved).

Perceiving facial affective ambiguity: A behavioral and neural comparison of adolescents and adults.

The current study examined perceptual differences between adults and youth in perceiving ambiguous facial expressions. We estimated individuals' internal representation for facial expressions and compared it between age groups (adolescents: N = 108, Mage = 13.04 years, 43.52% female; adults: N = 81, Mage = 31.54, 65.43% female). We found that adolescents' perceptual representation for facial emotion is broader than that of adults', such that adolescents experience more difficulty in identifying subtle configurational differences of facial expressions. At the neural level, perceptual uncertainty in face-selective regions (e.g., fusiform face area, occipital face area) were significantly higher for adolescents than for adults, suggesting that adolescents' brains more similarly represent lower intensity emotional faces than do adults'. Our results provide evidence for age-related differences concerning psychophysical differences in perceptual representation of emotional faces at the neural and behavioral level. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2020 APA, all rights reserved).

Within-person fluctuations in maternal sensitivity and child functioning: Moderation by child temperament.

We examined implications of within-person fluctuations in maternal sensitivity on child behaviors during mother-child interaction and assessed child temperament as a moderator. Mother-toddler dyads (N = 64, Mage = 27.20 months, SDage = 5.18) were observed interacting in a series of tasks over the course of a 1-hr laboratory visit, and maternal and child behaviors were rated in 60-s intervals. Parents also reported on child temperamental pleasure and anger proneness. Above and beyond between-person associations and controlling for systematic changes across tasks, associations between fluctuations in maternal sensitivity and child behaviors emerged and were moderated by child temperament. Specifically, temperamental pleasure buffered momentary decreases in maternal sensitivity. For children low (vs. high) on temperamental pleasure, decreases in maternal sensitivity in a given 60-s interval were more strongly associated with decreases in child attention to task, decreases in positive engagement with mother, and increases in child negative affect in the same interval. Additionally, for children with high (vs. low) on anger proneness, increases in maternal sensitivity in a given 60-s interval were more strongly associated with increases in child positive engagement and decreases in negative affect, and these interaction patterns provided partially support for anger proneness as a differential susceptibility factor. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved).

Alterations in adolescent dopaminergic systems as a function of early mother-toddler attachment: A prospective longitudinal examination.

Early experiences have the potential for outsized influence on neural development across a wide number of domains. In humans, many of the most important such experiences take place in the context of the mother-child attachment relationship. Work from animal models has highlighted neural changes in dopaminergic systems as a function of early care experiences, but translational research in humans has been limited. Our goal was to fill this gap by examining the longitudinal associations between early attachment experiences (assessed at 2.5 years) and neural responses to risk and rewards during adolescence (assessed at 13 years). Adolescence is a developmental period where sensitivity to rewards has important implications for behavior and long-term outcomes, providing an important window to study potential influences of early attachment experiences on reward processing. In order to address this question, 50 adolescents completed a risk and reward task during an fMRI scan, allowing us to assess differences in neural sensitivity to changes in risk level and reward amount as a function of early attachment experiences. Adolescents with insecure attachment histories showed blunted sensitivity to increasing risk levels in regions of the dorsal striatum, while also showing heightened sensitivity to increasing reward levels in the same region. These results highlight the importance of early attachment experiences for long-term neural development. Specifically, early exposure to more maladaptive relationships with caregivers may confer dual risks prospectively for adolescents, sensitizing them to rewarding outcomes while de-sensitizing them to potential risks associated with those behaviors, perhaps due to stress-related dopaminergic changes early in development.

Dynamic bidirectional associations in negative behavior: Mother-toddler interaction during a snack delay.

Theoretical models posit real-time bidirectional processes between parents and children as integral to child development, yet few studies have examined such processes. In this study, cross-lagged autoregressive latent growth models were used to assess the dynamic organization of mother and toddler behavior across a snack-delay task. Maternal support and nonsupport and toddler aversive behaviors were rated in 15-s intervals (N = 127 dyads; mean toddler age = 32.7 months). As hypothesized, within-mother increases in nonsupport predicted within-child increases in aversive behavior in the subsequent interval. Likewise, within-child increases in aversive behavior predicted within-mother increases in nonsupport. Maternal support was unassociated with child aversive behavior. Findings are consistent with a dynamic model of mother-toddler influences on negative behaviors during a regulatory challenge. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved).

Interactive Contributions of Attribution Biases and Emotional Intensity to Child-Friend Interaction Quality During Preadolescence.

Using data from a subsample of 913 study children and their friends who participated in the NICHD Study of Early Child Care and Youth Development, the interactive contributions of child-reported attribution biases and teacher-reported child emotional intensity (EI) at Grade 4 (M = 9.9 years) to observed child-friend interaction at Grade 6 (M = 11.9 years) were examined. Study children's hostile attribution bias, combined with high EI, predicted more negative child-friend interaction. In contrast, benign attribution bias, combined with high EI, predicted more positive child-friend interaction. The findings are discussed in light of the "fuel" interpretation of EI, in which high-intensity emotions may motivate children to act on their cognitive biases for better or for worse.