PreviewLabs

Research utilizing the YIKES prototype, developed by PreviewLabs for Dr. Eli H. Lebowitz, PhD, Director Program for Anxiety Disorders at the Yale Child Study Center, indicates the potential of motion tracking devices to measure avoidance behavior in children and adults.

The three studies concluded that motion tracking technology could be valuable to measure avoidance behavior.

Avoidance behavior is a key component of many mental health disorders, particularly anxiety disorders. YIKES (which stands for Yale Interactive Kinect Environment Software) leverages the motion tracking capabilities of the Microsoft Kinect to detect this kind of behavior. The prototype analyzes players’ movements triggered by objects falling down from the top of the screen, while different stimuli (spiders, starfish, etc.) are shown on the left and right. By analyzing changes in the player’s movement, YIKES is able to measure the level of avoidance.

Dr. Lebowitz used this prototype in his research, which spans three studies, to demonstrate the validity and reliability of this approach in measuring avoidance in children and adults. In these studies, behavior avoidance was associated with self-reported fear and anxiety symptoms. The Motion-tracking measurements were highly correlated with self-report measures of anxiety, indicating that this technology holds the potential to effectively measure avoidance behavior.

Dr. Lebowitz published his findings in a final paper which was published to Elsevier. You can find the full text here.