Computer Vision Analysis of Reduced Interpersonal Affect Coordination in Youth With Autism Spectrum Disorder.

Area of Science:

• Neuroscience
• Psychology
• Computer Science

Background:

• Atypical social-emotional reciprocity is a hallmark of autism spectrum disorder (ASD).
• Interpersonal affect coordination, aligning behaviors and facial affect during interactions, is a measurable aspect of reciprocity.
• Previous research suggests reduced affect coordination in ASD, but studies often lack natural social contexts due to measurement tool limitations.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate interpersonal affect coordination in youth with ASD during natural conversations.
• To introduce and validate automated facial analysis using computer vision for measuring dynamic facial expressions and coordination.
• To examine the relationship between affect coordination and broader social-emotional functioning in ASD.

Main Methods:

• Utilized automated facial analysis via computer vision to objectively measure facial affect in synchronized videos.
• Analyzed cooperative conversations between youth with ASD, typically developing youth, and their adult partners (mothers and unfamiliar adults).
• Quantified the presence and intensity of positive facial affect and the degree of affect coordination between conversation partners.

Main Results:

• Both youth with ASD and their conversation partners displayed less positive affect during interactions.
• Youth with ASD exhibited significantly reduced affect coordination compared to typically developing peers.
• Affect coordination levels, when viewed dimensionally, predicted social atypicality, adaptive social skills, and empathy scores.

Conclusions:

• Affect coordination is a crucial interpersonal process with implications for social-emotional functioning in ASD.
• Automated facial analysis offers a promising, objective method for quantifying moment-to-moment emotional reciprocity in naturalistic settings.
• Reduced affect coordination may serve as a key indicator of social-emotional atypicality in autism spectrum disorder.