Multimodal measurement of music engagement in a natural setting for infants, young children and parents

To elucidate the breadth of their behavioral diversity, it is necessary to study the behavioral and physiological dynamics in human beings in natural settings instead of focusing solely on specific behaviors that are observed in controlled experiments. In natural contexts, musical activities (e.g., listening, singing, dancing, and playing musical instruments) are universal and integral to daily life in many cultures. Infants communicate with others through music even before they speak, leading to their social development. Young children engage in musical activities at home and in preschool settings with parents and other caregivers. However, the physiological and motor characteristics that underlie behavioral responses to musical activities remain largely unexplored. It is a major challenge to quantify physiological and motor dynamics without the imposition of physical constraints, such as those imposed by neuroimaging, which requires limitations to bodily movements. Here, we developed a methodology to capture physiological and motor dynamics in musical engagement for both children and their parents, using simultaneous multimodal measurement systems. Our index includes heartrates, body movements, and reports of subjective emotional feelings (for parents). These measurements allow us to integrate indices, visualizing individual or pairwise variations in the physiological and motor characteristics associated with responses to musical activities. (200/200)•We developed systems to measure heart rate, movement and emotional responses in parents, infants and young children during musical activity.•We configured it to measure multimodal indices non-invasively and without physical constraints.•This will contribute to the elucidation of individual and pair variations in physiological dynamics in the natural environment.