Microgenetic Research using (Cross-)Recurrence Quantification Analysis

• In Event: 1-044 - Finding Structure in Time: Computational Methods for Characterizing the Micro-dynamics of Interaction

Integrative Statement

The temporal structure of behavior contains a rich source of information about its dynamic organization, origins, and development. This information is essential for unravelling how children’s actions are synchronized with those of other people, for example in social interaction, or how they are coordinated in a specific task, for example during problem solving. In addition, it provides a framework for conceptualizing and understanding how behavior emerges and develops from the interaction of body, brain and environment. By thoroughly studying the behavior as it unfolds over time, with an emphasis on the multiple timescale dynamics by means of nonlinear time-series analysis, it is possible to reveal this information.

A methodological introduction and demonstration will be given of a particular nonlinear time-series technique, called recurrence quantification analysis, which can be applied to continuous as well as nominal data, and to a single data stream (i.e. RQA) as well as two coupled data stream (i.e. CRQA). The latter version of the technique allows for the study of attunement and synchronization between two coupled systems, such as peer interactions and mother-infant interactions. (C)RQA affords the quantification of the prominent features of the dynamical organization underlying overt system behavior, such as its regularity, stability, and flexibility. This technique can reveal relations between behavioral variables on different timescales, which are inaccessible to traditional central tendency measures and correlational or lag-sequential methods. Over the past decades, RQA has seen several convincing applications in various research areas of psychology, especially within developmental psychology.

Focus of the presentation will be on the background and main features of the technique, the kinds of insights it can provide, and on its advantages above traditional measures, more than on a rigorous treatment of all the details of the analysis. Several applications will be given to demonstrate the use of (C)RQA in developmental psychology. Examples include the changing coupling between a language‐acquiring child and the utterances of her parent, in spontaneous conversations over the period of one year, the coupling of the biological system of infant sleep and the social system of mother-infant synchrony, interpersonal coordination in young children during dyadic problem solving, and synchronization of mother-infant feeding behavior during the first year.

Author

• Ralf Cox, University of Groningen
  Presenting Author