Are Cry Studies Replicable? An Analysis of Participants, Procedures, and Methods Adopted and Reported in Studies of Infant Cries
Abstract
:1. Introduction
2. Materials and Method
2.1. Variable Definition
2.2. Search Methods and Results
3. Results
3.1. Participants
3.2. Data Collection
3.3. Methods and Data Analysis
4. Discussion
5. Conclusions
Author Contributions
Funding
Acknowledgments
Conflicts of Interest
Abbreviations
CNS | Central Nervous System |
ASD | Autism Spectrum Disorder |
SIDS | Sudden Infant Death Syndrome |
F0 | Fundamental Frequency |
Fn | nth Formant |
Part | Number of Participants |
Sam | Number of Samples |
Age | Participants’ Age |
Sex | Participants’ Gender |
Tri | Cry Trigger |
Pos | Participants’ Position |
Hea | Participants’ Health Status |
Mic | Microphones’ Model |
MTM | Mouth-To-Microphone Distance |
Env | Recording Environment |
SR | Sampling Rate |
FF | File Format |
PP | Preprocessing Procedure |
SwHw | Software / Hardware |
FE | Feature Extraction Methods |
FR | Frequency Range |
AF | Analyzed Features |
Ww | Windows Size |
Appendix A. Supplementary Material—Variable Descriptions
Appendix A.1. Participant Information
Appendix A.1.1. Number of Participants (Part)
Appendix A.1.2. Number of Cry Samples (Sam)
Appendix A.1.3. Age of the Infants (Age)
Appendix A.1.4. Sex of the Infants (Sex)
Appendix A.1.5. Trigger (Tri)
Appendix A.1.6. Position of the Infant during Recording (Pos)
Appendix A.1.7. Health Status of the Infants (Hea)
Appendix A.1.8. Additional Information
Appendix A.2. Data Collection
Appendix A.2.1. Microphone Used for Data Collection (Mic)
Appendix A.2.2. Microphone-to-Mouth Distance (Mtm)
Appendix A.2.3. Recording Environment (Env)
Appendix A.2.4. Sampling Rate of Recorded Signal (Sr)
Appendix A.2.5. File Format Used for Storage (Ff)
- Uncompressed files store the signal as it is, applying no content compression and resulting in files taking more space on digital drives.
- The lossless compressed format encodes in a way that reduces the size of an input file by creating a copy with the same acoustical properties that may have a smaller size, usually in the ratio 2:1 [57].
- To achieve a greater reduction in file space, a lossy compression algorithm can be used. Lossy compression achieves a higher compression ratio, usually around the ratio of 10:1, by reducing the audio quality of the signal. Although quality loss is almost imperceptible to human ears, modification of original signal influences the quality and accuracy of acoustical features estimated from it, such as F0. The most popular lossy file format is the MP3 format, which is widely used for music compression, but it is also employed in the research environment.
Appendix A.3. Methods and Data Analysis Information
Appendix A.3.1. Preprocessing Procedure (Pp)
Appendix A.3.2. Software and Hardware (Swhw)
Appendix A.3.3. Feature Extraction Method (Fe)
Appendix A.3.4. Analysed Frequency Range (Fr)
Appendix A.3.5. Analyzed Features (Af)
Appendix A.3.6. Window Size of the Signal during Feature Extraction (Ww)
Appendix B. Supplementary Material—Checklist
Appendix B.1. Participants’ Information
- □
- Number of participants: expressed as total number of participants of the study and with clear indication of the number of participants per group (if more than one group is present).
- □
- Number of samples: expressed as total number of samples recorded and with clear indication the number of samples per group (if more than one group is present) and of the number of samples per participant.
- □
- Age of the participants: statistics (mean, std, min, and max) age of the participants of the study for the whole set of participants and for the subset of participants per group (if more than one group is present). If possible, researchers should also indicate the gestational age at birth. Whenever possible, the weight of the participants should be reported as well.
- □
- Gender of the participants: total number of male and female participants and reported per group (if more than one group is present).
- □
- Cry trigger: information about the trigger that has been used to induce crying vocalizations in babies.
- □
- Posture during the recording: information about the position of the babies during the recordings (supine, prone, and seated).
- □
- Additional information: any other additional information that may help giving context to obtained results (e.g., language, ethnicity, and recruitment process).
Appendix B.2. Data Collection
- □
- Microphone model: the model of the microphone(s) used for recording.
- □
- Mouth-to-microphone distance: distance between the infants’ mouths and the microphone.
- □
- Recording environment: environment in which the data have been recorded (clinical or nonclinical). Additional information (e.g., was the baby familiar with the environment? Was the room soundproof and or silent? Was the temperature in room controlled? Was the level of humidity in the room controlled?) should be reported to clarify where data have been collected.
- □
- Sampling rate: Sampling rate of recorded signal (and resolution in bit).
- □
- File Format: format in which the file has been saved.
Appendix B.3. Methods and Analysis
- □
- Preprocessing procedure: detailed information about the preprocessing steps should be reported, included settings and parameters of employed tools and software.
- □
- Software and hardware: information about the software (with versions) and hardware (with model) employed in the research.
- □
- Feature extraction procedure: procedures that have been used to estimate analyzed features (if necessary).
- □
- Region of interest: frequency regions of interest of the signals that have been processed (e.g., between 100 and 4000 Hz).
- □
- Investigated features: list of features that have been analyzed.
- □
- Window size: size of the windows employed in the study, if any, including overlapping and step size.
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Sample Availability: The dataset generated for this publication is available on the Data Repository of the Nanyang Technological University https://doi.org/10.21979/N9/UDQBEK [20]. |
Variable | Abbr. | N | % | |
---|---|---|---|---|
Participants | Number of Participants | Part | 161 | 89% |
Number of Samples | Sam | 122 | 68% | |
Participants’ Age | Age | 133 | 74% | |
Participants’ Gender | Sex | 71 | 39% | |
Cry Trigger | Tri | 121 | 67% | |
Participants’ Position | Pos | 55 | 30% | |
Participants’ Health Status | Hea | 73 (77) | 95% | |
Data Collection | Microphones’ Model | Mic | 112 | 62% |
Mouth-To-Microphone Distance | MTM | 102 | 57% | |
Recording Environment | Env | 106 | 59% | |
Sampling Rate | SR | 115 | 64% | |
File Format | FF | 69 | 38% | |
Methods and Analysis | Preprocessing Procedure | PP | 98 | 54% |
Software/Hardware | SwHw | 140 | 78% | |
Feature Extraction Methods | FE | 150 | 83% | |
Frequency Range | FR | 31 | 17% | |
Analyzed Features | AF | 161 | 89% | |
Windows Size | Ww | 53 | 29% |
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Gabrieli, G.; Scapin, G.; Bornstein, M.H.; Esposito, G. Are Cry Studies Replicable? An Analysis of Participants, Procedures, and Methods Adopted and Reported in Studies of Infant Cries. Acoustics 2019, 1, 866-883. https://doi.org/10.3390/acoustics1040052
Gabrieli G, Scapin G, Bornstein MH, Esposito G. Are Cry Studies Replicable? An Analysis of Participants, Procedures, and Methods Adopted and Reported in Studies of Infant Cries. Acoustics. 2019; 1(4):866-883. https://doi.org/10.3390/acoustics1040052
Chicago/Turabian StyleGabrieli, Giulio, Giulia Scapin, Marc H. Bornstein, and Gianluca Esposito. 2019. "Are Cry Studies Replicable? An Analysis of Participants, Procedures, and Methods Adopted and Reported in Studies of Infant Cries" Acoustics 1, no. 4: 866-883. https://doi.org/10.3390/acoustics1040052