Digital Screener of Socio-Motor Agency Balancing Autonomy and Control

Dyadic social interactions evoke complex dynamics between two agents that while exchanging unequal levels of body autonomy and motor control, may find a fine balance to take turns and gradually build social rapport. To study the evolution of such complex interactions, we currently rely exclusively on subjective pencil and paper means. Here we complement this approach with objective biometrics of socio-motor behaviors conducive of socio-motor agency. Using a common clinical test as the backdrop of our study to probe social interactions between a child and a clinician, we demonstrate new ways to streamline the detection of social readiness potential in both typically developing and autistic children. We highlight differences between males and females and uncover a new data type amenable to generalize our results to any social settings. The new methods convert dyadic bodily biorhythmic activity into spike trains and demonstrates that in the context of dyadic behavioral analyses, they are well characterized by a continuous gamma process independent from corresponding binary spike rates. We offer a new framework that combines stochastic analyses, nonlinear dynamics, and information theory, to facilitate scaling the screening and tracking of social interactions with applications to autism. ### Competing Interest Statement The authors have declared no competing interest. ### Funding Statement This work was supported by the Nancy Lurie Marks Family Foundation Career Development Award to EBT and by the New Jersey Governors Council for Autism to EBT. TB and RR were funded by the NJ GCA grant. ### Author Declarations I confirm all relevant ethical guidelines have been followed, and any necessary IRB and/or ethics committee approvals have been obtained. Yes The details of the IRB/oversight body that provided approval or exemption for the research described are given below: The Rutgers Institutional Review Board gave ethical approval for this work. This study was approved by the Rutgers University IRB and signed consent was obtained from the legal guardian/parent of the child. Any identifiers are not known to the clinicians or parents and are used as a way to number the participants internally in our lab. I confirm that all necessary patient/participant consent has been obtained and the appropriate institutional forms have been archived, and that any patient/participant/sample identifiers included were not known to anyone (e.g., hospital staff, patients or participants themselves) outside the research group so cannot be used to identify individuals. Yes I understand that all clinical trials and any other prospective interventional studies must be registered with an ICMJE-approved registry, such as ClinicalTrials.gov. I confirm that any such study reported in the manuscript has been registered and the trial registration ID is provided (note: if posting a prospective study registered retrospectively, please provide a statement in the trial ID field explaining why the study was not registered in advance). Yes I have followed all appropriate research reporting guidelines, such as any relevant EQUATOR Network research reporting checklist(s) and other pertinent material, if applicable. Yes All data produced in the present study are available upon reasonable request to the authors All data produced are available online upon request. Link in the Data Availability section of the manuscript.