Motion Energy Analysis
Motion Energy Analysis (MEA) is a computerized method to automatically assess body motions of videotaped individuals. Starting from the point that motion behaviour of two persons is recorded using a digital video, the MATLAB© scripts assess their body motions. A detailed explanation is given by Altmann (2013) (in German) and Altmann et al. (2018) (in English). The MATLAB© scripts regarding MEA were written and developed by Uwe Altmann. In an ongoing project of the Institute of Psychosocial Medicine and Psychotherapy (Jena, Germany), the scripts were extended by Désirée Thielemann so that pre-processing steps (e.g. smoothing) and sub-routines of time series analysis run with one script.
Automatical Identification of Nonverbal Synchronisation Using Time Series Analysis Methods
Modern computer vision approaches allow the assessment of individual motion behavior based on video recordings. Starting from the point that motion behavior of two persons is assessed with Motion Energy Analysis (MEA), the MATLAB© scripts identify intervals of movement synchronization respectively time series intervals in which one person predict the time series values of the other. A detailed explanation can be found in Altmann (2011, 2013) and Thielemann et al. (2018).
The MATLAB© scripts regarding time series analysis with window cross-lagged correlation (WCLC), window cross-lagged regression (WCLR) and peak-picking algorithm were written and developed by Uwe Altmann. Please cite Altmann (2011, 2013). In an ongoing project of the Institute of Psychosocial Medicine and Psychotherapy (Jena, Germany), the scripts were extended by Désirée Thielemann so that pre-processing steps (e.g. smoothing) and sub-routines of time series analysis run with one script. You can apply the attached scripts on your own data.