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Principal Investigator: JOHN David HERRINGTON
Organization: CHILDREN'S HOSP OF PHILADELPHIA
Fiscal Year: 2024
Award: $832,008
Funding agency: National Institute of Mental Health
ABSTRACT
Difficulties with emotion expression and social behavior characterize multiple psychiatric conditions and
negatively impact child development. However, existing measurement tools for indexing social-emotional
function are imprecise and subjective, or require specialized training that is costly and time-intensive, prohibiting
widespread implementation. The imprecision of existing tools has a major negative impact not only on research,
but on the ability to assess and treat individuals with mental health concerns – especially among underserved
and under-resourced populations. Here, we propose to address this problem by quantifying social and emotional
behavior using novel biobehavioral markers derived from computer vision (facial expression analysis) and
computational linguistics (social/sentiment analysis). Our team has successfully used these markers to predict
the presence of autism spectrum disorder (ASD) with 91% accuracy. In this proposal, we determine the extent
to which our markers can serve as continuous measures of social behavior and negative emotion to advance
clinical phenotyping and interventions. The proposal brings together two high-bandwidth clinical research
programs at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia and Baylor College of Medicine to collect data on 750
adolescents (ages 12-17 inclusive) with ASD, a primary anxiety or depressive disorder, or without any
developmental/psychiatric condition. At a single assessment, all youth will participate in an extensive clinical
phenotyping battery consisting of validated clinical interviews and child-/parent-report scales assessing
converging and diverging mental health constructs, and three tasks eliciting positive/negative emotion, social
stress, and mild frustration. A subsample of 150 adolescents will be reassessed 6-10 weeks later to allow
retest/stability analyses. A novel camera apparatus will capture naturalistic synchronized verbal and nonverbal
signals from dyads. Our analytic approach combines state-of-the-art machine learning, computational linguistics,
and computer vision – including facial emotion recognition methods that rival several commonly used
alternatives. The ultimate goal of this proposal is to develop valid and objective measures of the Social and
Negative Valence Systems using novel biobehavioral markers in a large transdiagnostic sample of youth.
Secondary goals are to develop easy-to-follow methods to widely disseminate our tools and procedures, and to
characterize individual variability in these key RDoC metrics by age, gender, race/ethnicity, and diagnosis. The
achievement of these goals will provide researchers with sorely needed measures of social and emotional
behavior, and provide clinicians with a new set of tools for identifying and tracking youth in need of mental health
treatment.
Terms: <0-11 years old><12-20 years old><ASD><Acceleration><Achievement><Achievement Attainment><Address><Adolescence><Adolescent><Adolescent Youth><Affective Disorders><Age><Anxiety><Anxiety Disorders><Autism><Autistic Disorder><Behavior><Behavior assessment><Behavioral Sciences><Cell Communication and Signaling><Cell Signaling><Child><Child Development><Child Youth><Children (0-21)><Children's Hospital><Clinical><Clinical Research><Clinical Sciences><Clinical Study><Computational Linguistics><Computer Vision Systems><Computers><Data><Data Collection><Depressive Syndromes><Depressive disorder><Development><Diagnosis><Diagnostic><Dimensions><Early Infantile Autism><Elements><Emotional><Emotions><Ethnic Origin><Ethnicity><Face><Facial Expression><Factor Analyses><Factor Analysis><Frustration><Funding><Gender><Goals><Grain><Hour><Human><Individual><Individual Differences><Infant and Child Development><Infantile Autism><Intervention><Intervention Strategies><Interview><Intracellular Communication and Signaling><Investigators><Investments><Judgment><Kanner's Syndrome><Laboratories><Leanness><Linguistic><Linguistics><Machine Learning><Maps><Measurement><Measures><Medicine><Mental Depression><Mental Health><Mental Hygiene><Methodology><Methods><Modeling><Modern Man><Mood Disorders><Moods><Multivariate Analyses><Multivariate Analysis><NIH Program Announcements><NIMH><National Institute of Mental Health><Negative Valence><Parents><Participant><Pediatric Hospitals><Philadelphia><Play><Population><Predictive Analytics><Procedures><Program Announcement><Psychiatric Diagnosis><Psychological Health><Psychopathology><QOL><Quality of life><RDoC><Race><Races><Reporting><Research><Research Domain Criteria><Research Personnel><Research Resources><Researchers><Resources><Sampling><Signal Transduction><Signal Transduction Systems><Signaling><Site><Smiling><Social Behavior><Social Processes><Specialist><System><Testing><Thinness><Time><Training><Translating><Trier Social Stress Test><Variant><Variation><Youth><Youth 10-21><abnormal psychology><adolescence (12-20)><affective computing><aged><ages><autism spectral disorder><autism spectrum disorder><autistic children><autistic spectrum disorder><behavior measurement><behavioral assessment><behavioral health><behavioral measure><behavioral measurement><biobehavior><biobehavioral><biological signal transduction><children on the autism spectrum><children with ASD><children with autism><children with autism spectrum disorder><clinical phenotype><college><collegiate><computer vision><cost><depression><developmental><digital phenotyping><emotional behavior><emotional expression><emotional functioning><experiment><experimental research><experimental study><experiments><expression of emotion><face expression><faces><facial><indexing><individual heterogeneity><individual variability><individual variation><interventional strategy><juvenile><juvenile human><kids><machine based learning><natural language><non-speaking><non-verbal><non-vocal><novel><parent><programs><racial><racial background><racial origin><repetitive behavior><response><showing emotion><social><social anxiety><social defects><social deficits><social disorders><social dysfunction><social metrics><social stress><socially anxious><socially stressed><sociobehavior><sociobehavioral><sociometrics><tool><verbal><youngster>