Multimodal Approach for Characterizing the Quality of Parent–Child Interaction: A Single Synchronization Source May Not Tell the Whole Story

SIMPLE SUMMARY: Parent–child interaction is the scaffold for future emotional and cognitive development and future well-being. As this interaction includes several domains, such as motor, speech, emotional expression, and more, characterizing the quality of parent–child interaction is often performed by a qualified person decoding it by observation. The development of computational tools allows relating to the interaction between the child and parent as synchronized data representing the correspondence between the two, focusing on brain-to-brain, voice/speech, eye contact, motor, and heart-rate signals. In this perspective, we will convey a new approach aiming to gather different sources of synchronization into one domain to reflect the quality of parent–child interaction. ABSTRACT: The interaction between the parent and child is essential for the child’s cognitive and emotional development and sets the path for future well-being. These interactions, starting from birth, are necessary for providing the sensory stimulation the child needs in the critical time window of brain development. The characterization of parent–child interactions is traditionally performed by human decoding. This approach is considered the leading and most accurate way of characterizing the quality of these interactions. However, the development of computational tools and especially the concept of parent–child synchronization opened up an additional source of data characterizing these interactions in an objective, less human-labor manner. Such sources include brain-to-brain, voice/speech, eye contact, motor, and heart-rate synchronization. However, can a single source synchronization dataset accurately represent parent–child interaction? Will attending to the same stimulation, often resulting in a higher brain-to-brain synchronization, be considered an interactive condition? In this perspective, we will try to convey a new concept of the child–parent interaction synchronization (CHIPS) matrix, which includes the different sources of signals generated during an interaction. Such a model may assist in explaining the source of interaction alterations in the case of child/parent developmental/emotional or sensory deficits and may open up new ways of assessing interventions and changes in parent–child interactions along development. We will discuss this interaction during one of the parent–child joint activities providing opportunities for interaction, i.e., storytelling.