ECO: Egocentric Cognitive Mapping

We present a new method to localize a camera within a previously unseen environment perceived from an egocentric point of view. Although this is, in general, an ill-posed problem, humans can effortlessly and efficiently determine their relative location and orientation and navigate into a previously unseen environments, e.g., finding a specific item in a new grocery store. To enable such a capability, we design a new egocentric representation, which we call ECO (Egocentric COgnitive map). ECO is biologically inspired, by the cognitive map that allows human navigation, and it encodes the surrounding visual semantics with respect to both distance and orientation. ECO possesses three main properties: (1) reconfigurability: complex semantics and geometry is captured via the synthesis of atomic visual representations (e.g., image patch); (2) robustness: the visual semantics are registered in a geometrically consistent way (e.g., aligning with respect to the gravity vector, frontalizing, and rescaling to canonical depth), thus enabling us to learn meaningful atomic representations; (3) adaptability: a domain adaptation framework is designed to generalize the learned representation without manual calibration. As a proof-of-concept, we use ECO to localize a camera within real-world scenes---various grocery stores---and demonstrate performance improvements when compared to existing semantic localization approaches

Multimodal Data Analysis of Dyadic Interactions for an Automated Feedback System Supporting Parent Implementation of Pivotal Response Treatment

abstract: Parents fulfill a pivotal role in early childhood development of social and communication skills. In children with autism, the development of these skills can be delayed. Applied behavioral analysis (ABA) techniques have been created to aid in skill acquisition. Among these, pivotal response treatment (PRT) has been empirically shown to foster improvements. Research into PRT implementation has also shown that parents can be trained to be effective interventionists for their children. The current difficulty in PRT training is how to disseminate training to parents who need it, and how to support and motivate practitioners after training. Evaluation of the parents’ fidelity to implementation is often undertaken using video probes that depict the dyadic interaction occurring between the parent and the child during PRT sessions. These videos are time consuming for clinicians to process, and often result in only minimal feedback for the parents. Current trends in technology could be utilized to alleviate the manual cost of extracting data from the videos, affording greater opportunities for providing clinician created feedback as well as automated assessments. The naturalistic context of the video probes along with the dependence on ubiquitous recording devices creates a difficult scenario for classification tasks. The domain of the PRT video probes can be expected to have high levels of both aleatory and epistemic uncertainty. Addressing these challenges requires examination of the multimodal data along with implementation and evaluation of classification algorithms. This is explored through the use of a new dataset of PRT videos. The relationship between the parent and the clinician is important. The clinician can provide support and help build self-efficacy in addition to providing knowledge and modeling of treatment procedures. Facilitating this relationship along with automated feedback not only provides the opportunity to present expert feedback to the parent, but also allows the clinician to aid in personalizing the classification models. By utilizing a human-in-the-loop framework, clinicians can aid in addressing the uncertainty in the classification models by providing additional labeled samples. This will allow the system to improve classification and provides a person-centered approach to extracting multimodal data from PRT video probes.Dissertation/ThesisDoctoral Dissertation Computer Science 201

Being a beast machine: the somatic basis of selfhood

Modern psychology has long focused on the body as the basis of the self. Recently, predictive processing accounts of interoception (perception of the body ‘from within’) have become influential in accounting for experiences of body ownership and emotion. Here, we describe embodied selfhood in terms of ‘instrumental interoceptive inference’, which emphasises allostatic regulation and physiological integrity. We apply this approach to the distinctive phenomenology of embodied selfhood, accounting for its non-object-like character and subjective stability over time. Our perspective has implications for the development of selfhood, and illuminates longstanding debates about relations between life and mind, implying – contrary to Descartes – that experiences of embodied selfhood arise because of, and not in spite of, our nature as ‘beast machines’

Neural oscillatory insight into the endogenous cognitive processes and inter-personal contingencies that drive infant attention and support joint action during early infant-caregiver interaction

Infants’ ability to engage in joint attention with others towards the end of the first year is fundamental to language acquisition and shared cognition. Despite this, our understanding of the endogenous cognitive mechanisms that drive infant attention during shared caregiver-infant interaction, and support dynamic inter-personal co-ordination is, at the moment, limited. Traditional approaches to joint attention development centred on understanding how caregivers didactically structure infant learning through ostensive communication. More recent perspectives, however, drawing on dynamic systems views of early cognition, have emphasised the role of fast-acting, multi-level, sensorimotor processes that operate across the dyad to support joint action and social learning. Newly developed micro-analysis approaches to studying early interaction have shown that infants use sensory cues to rapidly coordinate their attention with an adult partner, and statistical regularities in these cues are thought to extend infant attention and support word learning. To fully understand the contribution of joint interactions to early cognitive development however, we need to examine the mechanisms, endogenous to the infant, that support infant engagement and interpersonal contingency on a moment-by-moment basis. One way we can examine this is through the application of neurocognitive methods, such as electroencephalogram (EEG) recordings, to studying the dynamics of naturalistic, free-flowing interactions. Analysing time-locked and continuous associations between infants’ neural activity, infant attention, and inter-dyadic behavioural coordination, this thesis assesses the sub-second cognitive processes that influence how infants allocate their attention during triadic caregiver-infant play. First, neural evidence is presented to show that, whilst infants do not play a proactive role in creating episodes of mutual attention, they are sensitive to when their gaze is followed by an adult partner. Second, extended infant attention episodes are shown to be influenced, jointly, by attentional processes endogenous to the infant and reactive modulations in caregiver behaviour in response to changes in infant attention and cognitive engagement. Finally, the applicability of continuous methods to assessing speech-brain tracking by infants to their caregivers’ speech signal during naturalistic interactions is examined, and the role of behaviour-brain entrainment in creating and maintaining episodes of joint attention considered. Discussion focusses on the contribution of the findings to our understanding of active learning processes that operate across the dyad during early interaction, and that support the development of shared cognition. Models of early language learning in the context of the findings are considered, and directions for future work put forward

A Dynamic Exploration into Mentalization Among Youth on the Autism Spectrum

The relationship between mentalization, affect regulation, and the quality of object relations among individuals with an autism spectrum disorder was explored. The findings could be used as conceptual support for the use of psychodynamic psychotherapy in the treatment of people on the autism spectrum. The study consisted of a retrospective analysis of neuropsychological assessment standard scores on three measures (Mutuality of Autonomy Scale, NEPSY-II Theory of Mind subtest, and the CBCL Dysregulated Profile). Forty-four subjects diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder —aged nine to sixteen—were compared with a matched non-autism clinical sample. The results supported the hypothesis that individuals with an autism spectrum disorder have less capacity for mentalization compared to the comparison subjects and the general population. The findings did not support more affect dysregulation among those with autism compared to the comparison group, and did not find heightened affect dysregulation in comparison to the general population. Additionally, the study did not confirm that as mentalization capacity decreases affect dysregulation increases. As was hypothesized, the absolute level of object relations was in the average range among individuals with autism

The Role of Joint Attention in Pragmatic Language Development in Children with Autism Spectrum Disorders

All children with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) present with some form of impairment in social communication. Social cognitive learning theory suggests children’s early joint attention skills provide a foundation for future language development. Preliminary research suggests social cognitive behaviors such as joint attention in the context of parent scaffolding may serve as a mechanism for language development in children with ASD. The current study utilized a parent-child free play task to explore the relations among parent and child attention and responsivity and child pragmatic language in 26 children ages 3:1 to 6:11 and their parents. Parent supported joint attention was assessed during a parent child free-play task. Pragmatic language ability was assessed by the Comprehensive Assessment of Spoken Language (CASL; Carrow-Woolfolk, 1999). Developmental status significantly predicted child’s pragmatic language score while controlling for overall verbal ability, F(2, 23) = 6.37, p = 0.01, ΔR2 = .15. Developmental status was not a significant predictor of parent supported joint attention, F(1, 24) = 1.09, p = 0.31, indicating that regardless of developmental status there was no significant difference in the percentage of time parents and children spent in parent supported joint attention. Children with autism spectrum disorders initiated joint attention with their parents (M = 0.28) about half as much as their typically developing peers (M = 0.55). Post hoc analyses indicated for children with ASD in this current study, initiation of joint attention was significantly correlated to child RJA, r = 0.60, p = 0.04, suggesting that child with ASD who initiate joint attention with their parents also spend a larger amount of time responding to their parent’s bids for joint attention. The interaction between developmental status and child RJA was also significant, F = 6.16, p =.02, ΔR2 = .13, indicating that for children with ASD, responsiveness to their parent’s bids for joint attention of their parents plays a significant role for their pragmatic language ability in comparison to children with typically development. Collectively, the nature of these findings provides evidence for supporting social cognition in children with autism

USING EMOTIONS: BIOLOGICAL AND SOCIAL FACTORS INFLUENCING EMOTION UNDERSTANDING AND ANTISOCIALITY

People are guided by their emotions which in turn are a consequence of their understanding of others’ emotion expressions. Their skills to read and accurately identify others’ emotion expressions are a key ingredient for good emotion understanding. That is, accurate emotion identification can be considered as the first frontier of successful emotion understanding, and as the first step of a sequence which results in empathic responding. Impairment within this sequence might mean that the way people respond to their environment may not be appropriate or even cause harm to others. Children and adolescents with callous-unemotional traits have difficulties reading emotional cues correctly, specifically those cues which show others in distress. Such an impairment is thought to underlie a distinct pathway to severe and stable antisocial behaviour. Conventional methods of curbing the antisocial behaviour of children with high callous-unemotional traits such as punishment or time-out do not have the desired effect. Instead, this group of individuals seems to respond well to parental warmth and sensitive responding. Given that children start to learn early how to read and respond to emotions in an empathic manner through interactions, parents have a potential role by intervening early to foster good emotional and social skills even in children with high callous-unemotional traits. Study 1 tested whether adolescent boys with high callous-unemotional traits exhibit an impairment that is specific to distress cues such as fear, sadness or pain as difficulties to recognise such cues in others may impair typical inhibition to behave in an antisocial manner. In Study 2, it was expected that successful parental scaffolding is dependent on parent’s own emotion understanding skills, and therefore, study 2 investigated ways in which parents can scaffold emotion understanding in typically developing children, e.g. through talking about others’ emotion states and through engaging children in mutual eye gaze. Study 3 examined the impact that varying levels of child callous-unemotional traits have on parent-child interaction. Specifically, it was of interest whether children with high callous-unemotional traits are willing to engage with their parents on an emotional level permitting successful parental scaffolding. Parental understanding of emotions was tested in terms of promoting parental sensitive responsiveness. In sum, there are three main points the present thesis contributed: first, findings of Study 1 and 3 support a theory of emotion processing impairment that is not specific to fear or sadness, but describe a broader impairment of a failure to engage with the emotional environment and attend to salient emotional stimuli. Second, this thesis confirms the value of studying callous-unemotional traits in adolescents and young children as well as their parents. Third, findings of Studies 2 and 3 support the important role parents play in the lives of their children with callous-unemotional traits, specifically through their own emotion understanding

Infant Locomotor Skill Development in the Context of Mother-Infant Interactions

The acquisition of locomotor skills and transitions within them leads to changes in infants’ exploratory abilities and interactive behaviors, which affects several aspects of parent-infant exchanges. Here, we tracked how the onset of crawling and walking affected both infants’ and mothers’ spatial exploration, interactive behaviors, and use of postures in 10-minute free play sessions held in a laboratory setting. Thirteen infants and their mothers were followed longitudinally with biweekly sessions occurring from before crawling onset until infants had two months walking experience. We focused on two 6-session transition periods centered around the onsets of hands-and-knees crawling and walking. Behavioral data from the free play sessions were used to identify changes in spatial location coordinates, interactive behaviors, and postures within and across sessions. The use of location coordinates allowed us to derive measures of spatial exploration, including distance traveled, speed of travel, dispersion in the room, and distance between the mother and the infant. We related measures of spatial exploration to their interactive behaviors with toys, furniture and each other, their use of, and transitions between, postures, and the infants’ postural stabilization during play as they moved about the room. Results showed that predominantly with the acquisition of hands-and-knees crawling, infants increased their spatial exploration of the room, which was associated with concomitant increases in their interactive behaviors and postural changes. Mothers, on the other hand, showed an increase in spatial displacement in the room, but this increase was not associated with increased interactive behaviors or postural changes. This indicated that mothers’ spatial displacement was more likely driven by monitoring their child, and not active discovery of the room. As infants gained mobility, the distance between infant and mother increased. Mother-infant interactions and explorations therefore reorganized over time as infants gained motor skills