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Robotics and Autonomous Systems Lab
at Vanderbilt

Multisensory stimulation and data capture system (MADCAP) for investigating sensory trajectories for infants

Personnel: Dayi Bian, Zhaobo Zheng, Amy Swanson, Amy Weitlauf, Zachary Warren, & Nilanjan Sarkar.

Goals/Objectives:

  1. Design a multisensory stimulation delivery system to chart out sensory processing differences for infants

Outline:

Given that hypo- and hyper-responsiveness to sensory input is a core diagnostic feature of ASD that can cause significant impairment over time, it logically follows that children at risk of ASD may show subtle sensory differences earlier than ASD can reliably be diagnosed at present, within the first year of life, identifying those children that may benefit from closer developmental monitoring. In this project, we developed a multisensory stimulation and data capture system (MADCAP) for infants that delivers multiple sensory stimulations and simultaneously captures multi-dimensional data. MADCAP can potentially be useful to chart out sensory processing differences among high-risk and low-risk infants for ASD.

MADCAP includes three main components: a multisensory stimulation delivery module consisting of audio, visual, and tactile stimuli, a multi-dimensional data capture module capturing a subject’s response, and a supervisory controller module to synchronize the interconnection between the two modules. The audiovisual stimuli delivery module was implemented by using Unity software, it delivers synchronized or asynchronized audiovisual stimuli. The tactile stimulus is delivered by a custom-designed tactile stimulation device (TSD), which is designed specifically for infants to deliver affective touch at precisely controlled brush speed and pressure. TSD communicates and synchronize with audiovisual stimuli through serial port. The Tobii X120 eye tracker is used to record the gaze position and the E4 sensor was used to record the physiological data while worn on the ankle. The following picture is the experimental setup of MADCAP.

Publications:

  1. D. Bian, Z. Zheng, A. Swanson, A. Weitlauf, Z. Warren, and N. Sarkar, “Design of a Multisensory Stimulus Delivery System for Investigating Response Trajectories in Infancy,” International Conference on Universal Access in Human-Computer Interaction, 2017.