With the advancement of technology in both hardware and software, estimating human affective states has become possible. Currently, movie clips are used as they are a widely-accepted method of eliciting emotions in a replicable way. However, cultural differences might influence the effectiveness of some video clips to elicit the target emotions. In this paper, we describe several sensors and techniques to measure, validate and investigate the relationship between cultural acceptance and eliciting universal expressions of affect using movie clips. For emotion elicitation, a standardised list of English language clips, as well as an initial set of Arabic video clips are used for comparison. For validation, bio-signal devices to measure physiological and behavioural responses associated with emotional stimuli are used. Physiological and behavioural responses are measured from 29 subjects of Arabic background while watching the selected clips. For the six emotions’ classification, a multiclass SVM (six-class) classifier using the physiological and behavioural measures as input results in a higher recognition rate for elicited emotions from Arabic video clips (avg. 60%) compared to the English video clips (avg. 52%). These results might reflect that using video clips from the subjects’ culture is more likely to elicit the target emotions. Besides measuring the physiological and behavioural responses, an online survey was carried out to evaluate the effectiveness of the selected video clips in eliciting the target emotions. The online survey, having on average 220 respondents for each clip, supported the findings. It has been long argued whether emotions are universal or influenced by culture ,2,3,4. WTo commence such development, emotional responses should be elicited using stimuli in order to be measured. Such stimulus should be standardised to elicit single targeted emotion among different subjects . TherefoTo evaluate the suitability of the validated English set of emotion elicitation clips from  in eliciTo compare the evaluation results from the English set with an initial selection of the Arabic set of clips that is designed to elicit the same set of emotions as the English clips.To validate the evaluation results by analysing and classifying emotions based on the bio-signal and behavioural responses acquired during recording sessions in a laboratory environment.Given the unique and conservative Arabic culture, there is a need to evaluate and validate a set of emotion-eliciting video clips that are suitable for Arabic speakers to be used in affect studies on an Arab population. In particular, this paper evaluates and validates the relationship between cultural acceptance of emotional stimuli with their emotional response, by performing a comparative analysis of stimulus video clips in one culture. In an attempt to answer this paper’s research question, the following objectives are formulated:It is worth noting that this study does not aim to collect standardised Arabic video clips that could be used for emotion elicitation. Rather, it investigates weather the already standardised clip could be utilised for this purpose in Arab culture. A more advanced framework for standardising emotion stimuli was proposed in ,15. MorePrecisely defining the concept “emotion” is one of the issues faced in the affective computing field. Psychologically, affect is a general concept, which covers not only emotions, but also mood, attitudes, etc. . EmotionSeveral standardised techniques to elicit discrete emotions have been used  ,24. VideThe cultural background could have an influence on emotions felt and their triggers, where expression and interpretation of an emotion drastically differs between cultures ,22. DiffInvestigations of the influence of religion on culture and social behaviour have been studied and well documented ,36,37,38Many researchers have studied several potential signals to detect emotions automatically and objectively . The mosFacial expression of emotion is the most obvious and common way to express and interpret emotions. Most automated facial emotion recognition systems use measurements from the muscles’ movement, which were identified by . In theiWhile facial expressions could be concealed, eye activity and pupil size are mostly involuntary. Several studies have explored detecting a person’s state using eye tracking techniques, such as: driver fatigue , cognitiMoreover, as an objective measure of emotions, several studies investigated skin conductivity and peripheral body temperature changes and variation for the task of detecting emotions ,60,61. SThe brain wave signal has been investigated to map brain activity with emotional responses as an objective measurement. However, brain wave analysis for emotion recognition is still a relatively young field. Most emotion recognition approaches based on brain waves were performed as positive vs. negative emotion ,65,66, wTo test this research hypothesis, the relationship between cultural acceptance and elicited emotions from video clips is evaluated and validated. We evaluate the ability to elicit target emotions from some of the English video clips validated in  on SaudiOur work has two sub-goals: (1) measuring cultural acceptance and emotion elicitation from English clips compared to Arabic clips and (2) measuring physiological and behavioural changes during emotion elicitation from English clips compared to Arabic clips. Therefore, after selecting the stimuli, we also divided our data collection procedure into two parts see . For theIn this work, we investigate the elicitation and automated recognition of the universally-recognised six emotions  suggested by Ekman . TherefoDubbing the English video clips might be beneficial to reduce the speed variability of subtitle reading between subjects. However, it could lose the emotional tone from the original speech unless done professionally. Therefore, all English clips used in this study had Arabic subtitles . Moreover, a known limitation of using subtitles is that subtitles (text ) could an = 13). Moreover, this list was an initial step, which should be refined in future studies, since the aim of this paper is not to collect validated stimuli. An advanced method to evaluate and validate a bigger pool of Arabic clips was, for example, proposed in )Several action units have been used to identify certain emotions ,89,90,91Similarly to facial action units, the eye activity features had low performance results in the classification of emotions. In previous works, eye activities showed potential in multi-emotion classification  and in pHead pose features have been used to identify emotions ,105,106,Moreover, in the physiological and behavioural data collection, self-rating of elicited emotions was also collected in the post-questionnaire, where they were similar to the self-rating of emotions from the online survey  compared to the English clips (avg. 52%). This result might reflect that using video clips from the subjects’ culture is more likely to elicit the target emotions.Future work will progress to carefully select video clips for eliciting emotions in affect studies on an Arab population. The selected video clips must first be validated for cultural acceptance and effectiveness of eliciting target emotions in a large Arabic sample ( used 494


This paper presents a preliminary and tentative formulation of a novel empirical generalization governing the relationship between grammar and cognition across a variety of independent domains. Its point of departure is an abstract distinction between two kinds of cognitive structures: symmetric and asymmetric. While in principle any feature whatsoever has the potential for introducing asymmetry, this paper focuses on one specific feature, namely thematic-role assignment. Our main empirical finding concerns the role of language, or, more specifically, grammar, in effecting and maintaining the distinction between symmetric and asymmetric cognitive structures. Specifically, whereas symmetric structures devoid of thematic-role assignment more commonly occur in a non-grammatical and usually also non-verbal medium, asymmetric structures involving thematic-role assignment are more likely to be associated with a grammatical medium. Our work draws together three independent strands of empirical research associated with three diverse phenomenological domains: compositional semantics, metaphors and schematological hybrids. These three domains instantiate conceptual combinations, bringing together two or more subordinate entities into a single superordinate entity. For compositional semantics this consists of a juxtaposition of constituent signs to form a single more complex sign; for metaphors this entails the bringing together of two different concepts in order to produce a comparison; while for schematological hybrids this involves the combination of different entities to form a single new hybrid entity. Our empirical results reveal a remarkable parallelism between the above three domains. Within each domain, symmetric structures tend to be associated with a non-verbal or otherwise non-grammatical medium, while asymmetric structures are more frequently associated with a grammatical medium. Thus, within each domain, grammar introduces asymmetry. More specifically, we find that in all three domains, the asymmetry in question is one that involves the assignment of thematic roles. To capture this effect, we posit two distinct levels, or tiers, of cognition: non-grammatical cognition, more commonly associated with symmetric structures, and grammatical cognition more conducive to asymmetric structures. Within each of the three phenomenological domains, we find the distinction between non-grammatical and grammatical cognition to be manifest in three independent realms, phylogeny, ontogeny, and the architecture of human cognition. Thus, grammar constitutes the driving force behind the transition from symmetric to asymmetric cognitive structures. This paper presents a preliminary and tentative formulation of a novel empirical generalization governing the relationship between grammar and cognition across a variety of independent domains.symmetric and asymmetric. A cognitive structure of the form XY is symmetric if X is to Y as Y is to X with respect to all relevant features. Conversely, XY is asymmetric if there is one or more relevant features applying differentially to X and Y, thereby effecting an ordering, ranking, or imbalance between X and Y.Its point of departure is an abstract distinction between two kinds of cognitive structures: thematic-role assignment. Thematic roles are properties such as agent, patient, location, instrument and theme, that are assigned by one expression to another. For example, in a sentence such as John ran, the verb ran assigns the thematic role of agent to the noun-phrase John. Accordingly, due inter alia to thematic-role assignment, the sentence John ran is not a symmetric juxtaposition of its two words John and ran, but rather an asymmetric construction in which ran is a thematic-role assigner and John its thematic-role assignee.While in principle any feature whatsoever has the potential for introducing asymmetry, this paper focuses on one specific feature, namely Our main empirical finding concerns the role of language, or, more specifically, grammar, in effecting and maintaining the distinction between symmetric and asymmetric cognitive structures. Specifically, whereas symmetric structures devoid of thematic-role assignment more commonly occur in a non-grammatical and usually also non-verbal medium, asymmetric structures involving thematic-role assignment are more likely to be associated with a grammatical medium.compositional semantics, metaphors and schematological hybrids. Although quite different in many respects, these three domains share a common structural property, namely that they involve a bringing together of two or more subordinate entities into a single superordinate entity: X and Y become XY. For compositional semantics this consists of a juxtaposition of constituent signs to form a single more complex sign, e.g., John + ran > John ran; for metaphors this entails the bringing together of two different concepts in order to produce the comparison, e.g., anger + volcano > Anger is like a volcano; while for schematological hybrids this involves the combination of different entities to form a single new hybrid entity, e.g., man + horse > centaur. These three domains may thus be viewed as constituting conceptual combinations, in the sense of Our work draws together three independent strands of empirical research that we have been engaged in, separately and together, over the last several years, associated with three diverse phenomenological domains: John ran is just the symmetric sum of the meanings of John and ran, or whether there are further asymmetries between John and ran, for example, as suggested above, the assignment by ran of the thematic role of agent to John. For metaphors, we examine the extent to which comparisons of two terms are symmetric and reversible, as in Anger and a volcano are alike, or alternatively asymmetric and irreversible, with a source term lower on a hierarchy of some kind, such as volcano, applying to a target term higher on the same hierarchy, such as anger. And for schematological hybrids, the issue is whether a centaur is merely a symmetric combination of half-man and half-horse, or whether it inherits more properties from one of its components than from the other, in accordance with various principles such as an Ontological Hierarchy, which might entail that the centaur would be more man than horse.As such, one may examine the extent to which the composite conceptual structures formed from the subordinate entities are symmetric or asymmetric in nature. For compositional semantics, the question is whether the meaning of, say, Our empirical results reveal a remarkable parallelism between the above three phenomenological domains. Within each domain, we find a strong tendency for symmetric structures to be associated with a non-verbal or otherwise non-grammatical medium, and a complementary preference for asymmetric structures to be associated with a grammatical medium. In other words, within each of the three domains, grammar introduces asymmetry. More specifically, we find that in all three domains, the asymmetry in question is one that involves, in some form or another, the assignment of thematic roles.non-grammatical cognition, more commonly associated with symmetric structures, and grammatical cognition more conducive to asymmetric structures. These two levels of cognition are not on a par; rather, grammatical cognition is derived from non-grammatical cognition by the introduction of thematic-role assignment, which has the effect of transforming symmetric structures into asymmetric ones.In order to capture this effect, we posit two distinct levels, or tiers, of cognition: architecture of human cognition. Secondly, we demonstrate that the transition from non-grammatical to grammatical cognition is characteristic of ontogeny, the way cognition develops amongst infants. Thirdly, we offer indirect evidence and argumentation to the effect that a similar transformation from non-grammatical to grammatical cognition was also characteristic of phylogeny, the development of contemporary human cognition from that of our pre-human ancestors.Within each of the three phenomenological domains, we find the distinction between non-grammatical and grammatical cognition to be manifest in three independent realms. First, we show that the non-grammatical/grammatical distinction is a fundamental feature of the Empirical support for our findings derives from a mix of distinct research methodologies involving experimentation, observation of naturalistic behavior, and deductive argumentation within each of the three domains. Although we have already accumulated a large body of evidence in support of our findings, our presentation here is of a preliminary and programmatic nature, an initial laying out of the terrain to be filled in, hopefully, by future and more detailed studies.In the next section we provide a brief characterization of the role of thematic-role assignment in effecting a distinction between symmetric and asymmetric structures, following which, in the subsequent three sections we survey the evidence for distinct non-grammatical and grammatical modes of cognition in compositional semantics, metaphors and schematological hybrids respectively. The section on Compositional Semantics represents work in progress by the first author, some preliminary results of which are presented in hit, one must know that it assigns its arguments two thematic roles: an agent and a patient.Thematic roles are most familiar to us from linguistic theory. An important part of a word’s meaning is its associated thematic roles, also known as semantic frames  below:The way in which thematic-role assignment effects asymmetric structures, illustrated with the sentence (1)In (1a), X and Y combine to form a symmetric structure Z. In (1b), Y assigns a thematic role, denoted Θ, to X, thereby introducing an asymmetry to Z.Although logically the distinction between symmetric and asymmetric structures is a clear cut binary one, in practice it is quantitative. Purely symmetric structures are hard to come by. Thematic roles aside, an otherwise symmetric structure will often exhibit a degree of asymmetry associated with the medium with which it is associated. For example, even in the otherwise symmetric (1a), X precedes Y in its orthographic representation on the page; in other cases an otherwise symmetric structure may exhibit an asymmetry, such as up vs. down, associated with the spatial medium.privative nature. Asymmetric structures are derived from symmetric ones by adding features that effect the asymmetry. For example, in (1) above, the asymmetric structure in (b) is derived from its symmetric counterpart in (a) by introducing thematic-role assignment. Thus, symmetric structures are architectonically prior to asymmetric ones; they provide the foundations on which asymmetric structures are constructed.A crucial characteristic of the distinction between symmetric and asymmetric structures is its As we shall demonstrate below, the processes by which asymmetric structures are built on top of symmetric ones are associated with the introduction of language. Although, as noted above, thematic-role assignment is part of general conceptual structure, it is through the medium of grammar that it assumes its role as a central feature underlying asymmetric cognitive structures, thereby providing the basis for the distinction between non-grammatical and grammatical levels of cognition.The first of three phenomenological domains to be considered here is that of compositional semantics, which refers to the way in which the meaning of a combination of signs is derived from the meanings of each of its individual constituent signs.Since language is our primary conveyor of meanings, compositional semantics is most commonly thought of as a specifically linguistic feature; in fact, however, it is a central property of any semiotic system. Pictograms provide a fine illustration of this. Consider the juxtaposition of two meaning-bearing signs in In (2)BICYCLE, THATAWAY)A  means ‘entity associated with John,’ or simply John’s, where the relationship between the associated entity and John is underspecified. For example, John’s picture could refer, depending on context, to the picture that John owns, the picture that John drew, the picture that portrays John, and so forth. However, in (2), the association operator appears in dyadic guise, where its meaning is ‘entity associated with bicycle and thataway.’ It thus provides an underspecified meaning encompassing all of the potential interpretations of bicycle, and, in particular, whether it is the theme  or the goal  of thataway.In (2) above, the symbol A denotes the THATAWAY,BICYCLE) without any change in meaning. Thus, the combination of signs in bare-associational interpretations.The meaning represented in (2) is for all intents and purposes symmetric. Obviously, the two constituent meanings had to be written in some order on the page, but the order chosen is immaterial, the formula in (2) could just as easily have been written A  has no easy translation into English and many other languages. In order to approach the meaning conveyed in (2) one needs to shed the straitjacket of grammar and construct a grammatically defective utterance with a telegraphic feel such as the following:(3)Bicycles thatawaybicycle, such as the following:Constructions such as that in (3) are discussed in detail in (4)(a)Bicycles go thataway(b)Go thataway for bicyclesBuilding on the representations in (1), the most readily available interpretations of the two sentences in (4) may be represented as follows:(5)thataway assigns the thematic role of theme to bicycle, in (5b) it assigns it the role of goal.Whereas in (5a), THATAWAY assigns the appropriate thematic role to BICYCLE.The contrast between (2) and (5) shows how grammar introduces asymmetry into semantic compositionality. Whereas (2), associated with the non-verbal pictogram in BICYCLE, THATAWAY), also forms part of the two representations in (5). This captures the central role that the polyadic association operator plays not just in pictograms but also in ordinary language. Imagine a person who does not know English but who has access to an English dictionary. It suffices for them to look up the meanings of the words bicycle and thataway, in order to be relatively certain that the meanings of both (4a) and (4b) have something to do with BICYCLE and THATAWAY, as specified by the association operator in the formula A . However, without knowledge of English grammar, they will have a harder time figuring out the difference in meaning between the two sentences in (4), and the details of thematic-role assignment distinguishing between them. Thus, the two formulas in (5) capture a fundamental feature of the architecture of compositional semantics, showing how the asymmetric grammatical process of thematic-role assignment, associated with the higher grammatical level of cognition, is built on top of the symmetric pre-linguistic structure effected by the polyadic association operator, associated with the lower non-grammatical level of cognition.More specifically, the contrast between (2) and (5) shows how asymmetric structures are constructed on the foundations of symmetric ones. Note how the formula in (2), A ((It should be kept in mind that the asymmetry represented in (5) obtains between the assigner and the assignee of a single thematic role. This asymmetry underlies and sets the stage for another kind of asymmetry that has been the focus of much attention in recent linguistic literature, that which holds between two or more expressions in the same clause bearing different thematic roles; see, for example The architecture of compositional semantics expressed in the two formulas in (5) is mirrored by the transition from symmetric to asymmetric structures in ontogeny and phylogeny. Consider, first, early child language acquisition, where the child has just begun to produce two word utterances. (6) (a)HURT - causehurt truck (b)HURT - patienthurt knee truck is understood as the cause of hurt, while in (6b), knee is understood as its patient — as indicated to the right. Accordingly, Bloom argues that there is no reason to analyze utterances such as these in terms of grammatical structure involving thematic-role assignment. Rather, the juxtaposition of words in early child language may be assigned a bare-associational meaning represented in terms of the polyadic association operator, such as, for (6a), A , ‘entity associated with hurt and with truck’  h truck’ , p. 484.In this respect, ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny. Rudimentary symmetric compositional semantics would appear to be present in the natural communicative systems of primates in their natural habitat , and Cha(7) (a)LIZ HIDEagent - HIDE(b)WATER HIDEpatient - HIDE(c)HIDE AUSTINHIDE - agent(d)HIDE PEANUTHIDE - patientHIDE is either preceded or followed by a participant, which, in accordance with the utterance’s context as provided by the authors, may, in either position, be understood as either the agent or the patient of HIDE. There is thus no evidence for any grammatical assignment of thematic roles in Kanzi’s use of lexigrams; rather, the relationship between the two signs is semantically underspecified. As in the pictograms in LIZ,HIDE), ‘entity associated with Liz and with hiding’ (Example (7) above forms a mini-paradigm, represented schematically at right, in which  hiding’ , p. 482.Association Experiment. While some preliminary results of the Association Experiment are presented in The distinction between symmetry and asymmetry in the domain of compositional semantics is not categorical but rather gradated. Thematic-role assignment is not something that is either present or absent; instead, it can be present to various degrees, depending on a wide variety of factors, both grammatical and extra-linguistic. An extensive empirical exploration of some of these factors is conducted in an ongoing study, the In the experiment, speakers of different languages are asked to judge the truth conditions of sentences in their languages. Stimuli consist of written sentences, each accompanied by two pictures; speakers are asked which picture is correctly described by the sentence . The experiment contains 32 stimuli measuring the relevance of thematic-role assignment to compositional semantics. The stimuli are controlled for a variety of factors, such as the nature of the activity , the type of the participants , and the participants’ spatial orientation in the pictures. For each language, at least 30 subjects are examined, all of lower socio-economic status, in order to control, as much as is practically possible, for effects due to lifestyle and education. The experiment has been conducted on 69 languages.In (8) and (9) below, two examples of stimuli are shown for four selected languages: English, Japanese, Yali  and Tikuna (a language isolate of the Amazon region of Colombia). In (8) and (9), speakers of the respective languages are asked to judge whether the given sentence is true in the situation depicted, and in an alternative picture not shown here. The percentages indicate the proportion of speakers who accepted each sentence as a true description of the picture, for the stimuli presented here together with other structurally similar picture-sentence pairs.(8)Stimulus 1(9)Stimulus 2For each of the languages examined, the sentence in (8) is derived from a sentence such as ‘The clown is drinking the water’ by replacing the word for ‘water’ with the word for ‘book,’ while the sentence in (9) is derived from a sentence corresponding to ‘The woman is pushing the car’ by interchanging the words for ‘woman’ and ‘car.’The clown is drinking the book. In accordance with the polyadic association operator, the meaning of the sentence must have something to do with a clown, a drinking, and a book. And indeed, the test picture does involve a clown, a drinking, and a book. However, adult speakers of English overwhelmingly rejected sentence (8a) as a true description of the picture. This is because the compositional semantics of English contains much more than just the polyadic association operator: bare association is supplemented by thematic-role assignment. In particular, the structure of (8a) is such that drink assigns the thematic role of patient to book, which results in a semantically anomalous interpretation, while ruling out the test picture, in which drink and book are only loosely connected via bare association. Similarly, for English sentence (9a), The car is pushing the woman, the test picture does have a car, a pushing and a woman; however, adult speakers of English overwhelmingly rejected (9a) as a true description of the picture, because “it’s round the wrong way,” and the grammar is telling us, again anomalously, that the car is the agent of the pushing and the woman its patient.The Association Experiment measures the degree to which subjects distinguish between thematic roles by recourse to construction-specific rules of grammar involving morphosyntactic features such as word order and flagging (a cover term that includes case marking and adpositions). Consider, for example, English sentence (8a) wait-a-moment effect produced by many subjects when responding to the experimental stimuli. For example, in (8), subjects would notice a clown drinking and a book and point to the picture, but then right after, realize that the grammar was wrong, say “wait a moment,” and retract their response and offer a negative one in its place. This effect points toward a two-stage process in which subjects first applied the symmetric polyadic association operator, as per (2), and only then, shortly after, added asymmetric thematic-role assignment, in accordance with (5). This two-stage process echoes The results of the Association Experiment provide further support for the two-tiered architecture of compositional semantics as represented in (5) and the way in which it plays out in ontogeny and phylogeny. Support for the two-tiered architecture in (5) is provided by a Support for the ontogenetic trajectory from symmetry to asymmetry is provided by a study of children speaking the Riau dialect of Indonesian. While by age 10, subjects’ responses were at adult levels, 8 and 9 year old subjects were significantly more likely to ignore the adult-language preferences for particular thematic-role assignments and respond instead on the basis of bare association; for example, for (8) and (9), they would be more likely to point to the picture as being an acceptable interpretation of the corresponding sentence in Riau Indonesian.Finally, support for the phylogenetic trajectory from symmetry to asymmetry is provided by inferences drawn from patterns of cross-linguistic variation in subjects’ responses to the experimental stimuli. Not all languages work the same way as English: as suggested by the percentages in (8) and (9), languages vary significantly in the degree to which bare association is narrowed down by additional grammatical rules governing the assignment of thematic roles. Whereas in languages such as English and Japanese, thematic-role assignment is largely specified by the grammar, and speakers usually reject bare-associational interpretations, in languages such as Yali and Tikuna, bare associational interpretations are obtainable in a majority of cases.The degree to which thematic-role assignment is specified by the grammars of different languages is the product of several diverse factors, of which the most important one, which we focus on here, is the complexity of the polity with which the language is associated. It is no accident that many readers may not have heard of the two languages, Yali and Tikuna, chosen in (8) and (9) to exemplify greater tolerance of bare associational interpretations. The 69 languages of the Association Experiment sample may be ranked in accordance with a scale of polity complexity, as shown in (10) below:(10)Polity ComplexityThe scale in (10) combines several measures of polity complexity. First is a basic dichotomy between national and regional languages. National languages are further distinguished with respect to more specific characteristics pertaining to the language’s functions and status. And regional languages are classified in terms of the complexity of their associated societies as reflected in the number of levels of “jurisdictional hierarchy beyond local community,” as defined in the D-Place database . In (10)The 9-valued scale of polity complexity shown in (10) correlates positively with the degree of complexity of the compositional semantics of the associated languages, as evident in the results of the Association Experiment. In general, languages whose polities are of high complexity, such as English and Japanese, exhibit high grammaticalization of thematic roles and concomitant low tolerance of bare-associational interpretations, whereas languages of low polity complexity, such as Yali and Tikuna, exhibit low grammaticalization of thematic roles and high tolerance of bare-associational interpretations. Taking the 69 languages of the sample to be independent variables, the correlation turns out to be of high statistical significance. In the real world, though, the 69 languages are not all independent of each other; however, examining sets of closely related language varieties differing with respect to polity complexity provides even more convincing support for the correlation. For example, Standard Indonesian, with polity complexity 2, has higher grammaticalization of thematic-role assignment than Riau Indonesian, with polity complexity 4, which in turn has higher grammaticalization of thematic-role assignment than Minangkabau, with polity complexity 7 — even though all three language varieties are closely related exhibiting a certain degree of mutual intelligibility.The correlation between polity complexity and grammaticalization of thematic-role assignment provides a direct window into the evolution of compositional semantics. Although we have no direct evidence with regard to the linguistic abilities of pre-modern humans or their hominin ancestors, we do know one obvious fact about their socio-political organization, namely that it was near the bottom of the scale of polity complexity in (10) above. Regardless of the nature and directionality of the causation underlying the correlation between polity complexity and grammaticalization of thematic-role assignment, the presence of the correlation suggests that the languages of today’s low-complexity polities may provide a model for the languages of our ancient ancestors: whatever today’s low-polity-complexity languages are like, that is how all languages used to be. The results of the Association Experiment thus provide further support for the conclusion that, in the course of the evolution of human language, compositional semantics began from bare association and the polyadic association operator, and gradually, over the course of time, evolved the grammatical structures that give rise to thematic-role assignment.In summary, then, the Association Experiment provides additional evidence, architectural, ontogenetic and phylogenetic, for a two-tiered compositional semantics in which a symmetric polyadic association operator constitutes the foundation on which the asymmetric rules of thematic-role assignment may apply. In conjunction with the other sources of evidence discussed earlier, it thus shows how the asymmetry of thematic-role assignment is introduced by grammatical structure, both in the evolution of human language and in its acquisition by children — as is reflected in the two-tier architecture of compositional semantics represented in (5) above.The results of this section thus run counter to many or most current approaches to compositional semantics in linguistic theory, in which asymmetric structures are posited directly, without recourse to a prior symmetric foundation. However, the two-tiered architecture argued for here would appear to be akin in spirit to Compositional semantics represents one of the simplest and most ubiquitous domains in which two terms are brought together to form a third, and in which a pre-linguistic symmetric structure is rendered asymmetric by the introduction of grammar. We now go on to consider two additional phenomenological domains which also involve the bringing together of two terms, but which differ from compositional semantics in one important respect, namely that they involve some kind of conceptual anomaly.Consider In (11)BABY ∼ DOGBABY and DOG is symmetric. From a purely logical point of view, if X is similar to Y then Y is similar to X. And indeed, in terms of processing, a search for similarities can just as readily start out by taking the baby as a reference point and seeking similar properties of the dog, or the other way around.As represented in (11), the relationship of similarity between However, when people are asked to judge whether they prefer verbal comparisons in which the baby is said to resemble the dog, or alternatively ones in which the dog is said to resemble the baby, they exhibit a preference for the former. This preference is independent of the order in which the two entities are shown.  below, in terms of thematic-role assignment:(12)DOG assigns the thematic role of theme to BABY.  What this says is that ‘baby is (like) a dog,’ where, of course, ‘is (like) a dog‘ is understood as something along the lines of ‘resembles a dog with respect to a particular set of properties.’ Conventional terminology captures this asymmetry by characterizing the dog as the source of the metaphor and the baby as its target (In (12), s target .The contrast between the structures in (11) and (12) closely mirrors that between the structures in (2) and (5) in the preceding section. In both cases, thematic-role assignment imposes an asymmetry on an architecturally prior symmetric structure — the symmetry in question being that of bare association in the first case, similarity in the second. And as we shall see below, here too it is grammar that introduces the asymmetry in question.Prima facie, these different kinds of evidence appear to be contradictory. In reality, however, they reflect what Empirical evidence of various kinds has been offered in support of both bidirectional symmetric and unidirectional asymmetric approaches to metaphors. AFFECTION IS WARMTH; in another study, participants were likely to judge currency to be more valuable when they were holding a heavy (rather than a light) clipboard  can change their evaluation of room temperature — a mapping that defies the regular concrete-to-abstract pattern and has no verbal equivalent in ordinary language  beverage in their hands tended to judge target individuals as having a warmer personality , in accolipboard , in accolanguage . Similarmetaphor . More gewarm person or cold-hearted, reflecting an underlying conceptual metaphor AFFECTION IS WARMTH, are cross-culturally unidirectional, in that they tend to map concrete domains, such as TEMPERATURE, on to abstract ones, such as INTERPERSONAL RELATIONS, rather than the other way around. Similarly, as noted previously, when confronted with stimuli such as those in The most common medium for the expression of comparisons is, however, verbal; and the linguistic nature of most experimental tasks is the reason why the bulk of the existing empirical evidence has always pointed toward a unidirectional, or asymmetric process. Thus, when the above-mentioned bidirectional experiential correlations are expressed in a verbal medium, the resulting metaphors are fundamentally unidirectional . For exaIt is sometimes suggested that the unidirectionality of metaphors reflects a conceptual asymmetry inherent to conceptual metaphors . However(13)Surgeons and butchers are alike(14) (a)This surgeon is a butcher(b)This butcher is a surgeonIn (13), the two nouns occur in a symmetric coordination, whose most readily available interpretation is non-metaphorical (they both cut flesh). However, in (14), the two nouns occur in subject and predicate positions in a syntactically asymmetric predicate-nominal construction, with two significant consequences. To begin with, the asymmetric grammatical structure is itself conducive to metaphorical interpretations . MoreoveThus, although forming the basis for competing theoretical approaches, bidirectionality and unidirectionality actually represent two distinct stages in the construction of metaphors, with symmetric comparisons such as those in (11) constituting the foundation for asymmetric metaphors such as those in (12), involving thematic-role assignment introduced by the grammatical medium.Some arguments are wars, or reversed order, e.g., Some wars are arguments. When the metaphors were presented for a short duration of 500 ms, the sentences in the two orders did not differ in comprehensibility . In contrast, when the metaphors were presented for longer periods of time, the metaphors in canonical order were judged to be more comprehensible than their reversed counterparts. Their experiment thus provides direct evidence for a two-stage process in metaphor comprehension, with an earlier symmetric bidirectional stage followed by a subsequent later asymmetric unidirectional stage, again consistent with Empirical support for a two-stage model for the comprehension of metaphorical comparisons is provided by Evidence for the role of grammar in the transition from bidirectionality to unidirectionality is provided by two further experiments conducted by __ is like __. Subjects exhibited a strong preference for the concrete-to-abstract arrangement for both novel and conventional pairs, preferring sentences such as Childhood memories are like migrating birds and Fear is like cold over their reversed counterparts, Migrating birds are like childhood memories and Cold is like fear. This finding suggests that the conceptual asymmetry between the members of each pair was strong enough to dictate a preferred direction of mapping, regardless of the novelty/conventionality of the comparison.In the first phase of each experiment, subjects were asked to arrange the pairs within the grammatically asymmetrical simile construction Childhood memories and migrating birds are alike, or in a grammatically asymmetric construction e.g., Childhood memories are like migrating birds. For each item, subjects had to decide in which of two given contexts the sentence was more likely to be uttered: while one of the contexts was about the abstract concept, e.g., a nostalgic writer speaking about his youth, the other was about the concrete concept, e.g., an enthusiastic ornithologist describing the flight of birds. In this case, subjects preferred the context consistent with the concrete-to-abstract mapping, e.g., the nostalgic writer, not the enthusiastic ornithologist, significantly more often when presented with the grammatically asymmetrical construction than when presented with the grammatically symmetrical one, for both novel and conventional concept pairs. What this shows, then, is that despite the clear conceptual asymmetry between the two parts of the comparison, the abstract noun phrase, e.g., childhood memories, was not automatically assigned the role of metaphorical target; instead, this assignment occurred only after the two concepts were encountered in a grammatically asymmetrical structure.In the second phase of each experiment, subjects were presented with the above pairs expressed either in a grammatically symmetric construction, e.g., The picture emerging from the above experiments is thus one of a two-tiered cognitive architecture, with a lower, non-grammatical level of cognition associated with symmetric bidirectional comparisons forming the basis for a higher level of cognition, in which asymmetric unidirectional metaphors are introduced and supported by the medium of grammar. Moreover, as was the case in the preceding section for compositional semantics, the two-tiered cognitive architecture of metaphorical comparisons can be shown to constitute a dual mirror of both ontogenetic and phylogenetic processes.A boat is like a leaf, than grammatically symmetrical ones, such as A boat and a leaf are alike. In this respect, even pre-schoolers show some sensitivity to the difference between the two grammatical structures. However, the ordering of terms in the target and source roles did not affect the children’s performance: as in Conner’s study, a conventionally ordered sentence such as A boat is like a leaf was as easy to understand as its reversed version, A leaf is like a boat. Thus, as shown by these studies, metaphorical comparisons start out symmetric and bidirectional, and only later develop into their asymmetric unidirectional form.Several studies have shown that the unidirectionality of metaphors is a product of developmental maturation, and that for younger children bidirectionality is the rule. A mackerel is like forgetfulness, and asking them which of two potential speakers is more likely to utter the sentence — in the case at hand, a very old man or a fisherman. The experiment pits the directionality of conceptual hierarchies against the asymmetries of grammar, posing subjects with a dilemma. In accordance with the tendency to explicate abstract entities in terms of concrete ones, the comparison should be about forgetfulness, and hence the speaker is more likely to be the very old man. However, the grammatical structure of the sentence is such that the mackerel is the subject, and hence the speaker is more likely to be a fisherman. Who wins? Our findings, so far, suggest that the results depend on the language, and, in particular, on its associated polity complexity in accordance with the scale presented in the previous section in (10). Specifically, whereas in high-polity-complexity languages such as English, grammar wins out, with subjects exhibiting a strong preference to choose the fisherman as the speaker, in low-polity-complexity languages such as Abui (a language of the Timor-Alor-Pantar family of eastern Indonesia), grammatical and conceptual hierarchies are more equally balanced, with similar numbers of subjects choosing each of the two possible speakers. As was argued for compositional semantics in the preceding section, polity complexity may be used as a window into phylogeny, the assumption being that properties associated with languages of lower polity complexity are characteristic of a prior stage in the evolution of language and cognition. Specifically, we may conclude that at an earlier evolutionary stage, a somewhat weaker grammar played a relatively smaller role in the support of metaphor directionality.A similar journey from bidirectionality to unidirectionality would appear also to be observable phylogenetically. In a cross-linguistic study, Thus, the empirical evidence surveyed in this section shows that grammar plays a crucial role in the introduction of the asymmetry of thematic-role assignment into metaphorical structures — phylogenetically, ontogenetically, and in the cognitive architecture that mirrors these two developmental realms. Moreover, it does so in a way that presents a remarkable parallel to the way in which grammar was shown, in the preceding section, to introduce a similar asymmetry in a logically independent domain, that of compositional semantics. As we shall now see, a similar asymmetry-inducing role is played by grammar in yet a third, unrelated phenomenological domain, that of schematological hybrids.hybrid is an entity conceptualized as an inseparable combination, or fusion, of components associated with two or more distinct entities, which may be referred to as the hybrid’s parents. The notion of hybrid is very broad; Wikipedia (accessed on 18 May 2016) offers links to 55 different entries with titles containing the term hybrid, concerned with a variety of items from domains such as biology , technology , art , and many others The Ontological Hierarchyhumans > animals > plants > inanimates.Our focus is on the following question: What is the effect of the Ontological Hierarchy on the conceptualization of hybrids? Specifically, to what extent is there a tendency for hybrids to be categorized in accordance with the parent that is higher on the Ontological Hierarchy; for example, a man-bird as a kind of man, not as a kind of bird ?Our main finding is that the Ontological Hierarchy is in fact relevant to the conceptualization of hybrids. However, the Ontological-Hierarchy effect depends crucially on the medium in which the categorization takes place; specifically, it is dependent on the presence of grammar. In the absence of grammar, subjects tend to conceptualize hybrids symmetrically; for example, a man-bird is not more manlike than birdlike, and when forced to choose, similar numbers of subjects will choose either option. However, in grammatical contexts they are more likely to verbalize the same hybrids asymmetrically, in accordance with the Ontological Hierarchy; for example. A man-bird might be described as a man with bird’s wings rather than a bird with man’s legs.The effect of grammar on the categorization of hybrids may be observed in the following three ways , p. 1181(16) (a)The Ontological-Hierarchy effect is greater for tasks that involve grammatical structure than for non-verbal tasks or tasks that involve just the lexicon.(b)The Ontological-Hierarchy effect is greater for non-verbal tasks when they are primed by verbal ones.(c)The Ontological-Hierarchy effect is greater for verbal tasks when there is “more grammar”; specifically, asymmetric vs. symmetric grammatical structures.Our experimental studies make use of a set of 24 custom-designed visual stimuli representing schematological hybrids, such as that shown in non-verbal categorization task Consistent with Hierarchy(18)Inconsistent with Hierarchy(19)NeutralA large majority of the descriptions offered were asymmetric, as in (17) and (18); amongst these, roughly two-thirds of the descriptions were consistent with the Ontological Hierarchy, as in (17). , were too few for any tendencies to be observed.)choice of description task  and (21) below:(20)(21)MAN-BIRD, as a whole, is assigned the role of theme by its parent MAN: the man/bird hybrid is a man. This specific configuration of thematic-role assignment may be viewed as a particular case of headedness, in which a property of the head constituent MAN percolates upwards to the superordinate constituent (Whereas the structure in (20), representing the non-grammatical tasks, is symmetric, that in (21), representing the grammatical tasks, is asymmetric. As is the case for compositional semantics and metaphors previously, the asymmetry introduced by grammar involves thematic-role assignment — but in a rather different way. Whereas in (5) and (12) one of the two constituent terms assigns a thematic role to the other one, for hybrids, as represented in (21) above, the constituent term assigns a thematic role to the superordinate constituent. Specifically, the hybrid stituent .To this point, all of the tasks described involved speakers of Hebrew or closely related Arabic. However, given that what is at issue is an effect of grammar on cognition, it is reasonable to ask whether all languages work the same way as Hebrew and Arabic; after all, as is well known, although the Animacy Hierarchy itself is universal, its manifestations vary greatly from one language to another. To examine the cross-linguistic applicability of the animacy effect on the categorization of hybrids, we replicated two of the preceding tasks, the non-verbal categorization task and the verbal description task, in three additional languages: Bulgarian , Indonesreaction-time tasks , the Ontological-Hierarchy effect is greater for non-verbal tasks if they are primed by verbal ones  and (16b), the Ontological-Hierarchy effect is greater for tasks that involve, or are primed by, grammatical structure, than it is for non-verbal tasks or tasks that involve only the lexicon. One may now ask whether it is the mere presence of grammar that is responsible for the observed hierarchy effects, or conversely whether some specific feature of grammatical structure might underlie the role of the Animacy Hierarchy in the categorization of hybrids. Two further studies point toward the latter alternative. Specifically, they suggest that the crucial property of grammar responsible for the hierarchy effects is the pervasive asymmetry that is characteristic of most grammatical constructions: as specified in (16c), more grammatical asymmetry leads to more of an Ontological-Hierarchy effect  symmetric coordinating counterparts.Consider, now, an alternative description of the hybrid in As specified in (16c), the Ontological-Hierarchy effect on the conceptualization of hybrids is more pronounced for verbal tasks when there is “more grammar,” involving asymmetric structures, than it is when there is “less grammar,” as is the case for symmetric structures. Evidence comes from the measurement of reaction times, as in the tasks discussed above . SpeakerIf the hierarchy effect shown previously is due solely to the verbal medium and the presence of grammatical structure, then we might expect to observe differences in reaction time between the two cases: (a) for asymmetric descriptions, shorter reaction times for descriptions in accordance with the Animacy Hierarchy than for descriptions in opposition to it, and (b) for symmetric descriptions, shorter reaction times for descriptions in which the order of the two items was consistent with the hierarchy than for descriptions in which the order of the two items was inconsistent with it. On the other hand, if the hierarchy effect is dependent specifically on the presence of grammatical asymmetries, then one would expect to observe reaction-time differences only in the former (a) case, with the asymmetric descriptions, but not in the latter (b) case, with the symmetric descriptions. And in fact, this is what the results of the experiment showed: reaction-time differences were observed for the asymmetric descriptions but not the symmetric ones , then, more grammar means more of an Animacy-Hierarchy effect in the categorization of hybrids.We have thus provided empirical evidence for three distinct but related ways in which grammar introduces asymmetries in the conceptualization of hybrids, as spelled out in (16a–c). As was the case in the preceding sections, for compositional semantics and metaphors, the two-tiered cognitive architecture of hybrid conceptualization can now be shown to constitute a reflection of both ontogenetic and phylogenetic trajectories.While 10 and 6 years old speakers of Hebrew were found to perform at adult level with respect to the non-verbal categorization task and description task , some siAn additional manifestation of the same ontogenetic path from symmetric to asymmetric categorization of hybrids becomes evident in a more fine-grained analysis of the performance of the 3-year-old children. Like with the older groups, the hierarchy effect was significantly higher for the description task than for the non-verbal categorization task. However, for both tasks, the hierarchy effect was weaker overall than it was for the older groups; see One may now ask whether here, too, in the domain of hybrid conceptualization, ontogeny also recapitulates phylogeny. Given the lack of archeological attestations of schematological hybrids amongst hominins, and the obvious challenges posed by conducting experiments involving hybrids on primates, direct evidence is hardly forthcoming. Still, we do know that higher animals are clearly capable of non-verbal categorization ; and we Some preliminary indirect support for this assumption is provided by a hybrid description task performed by native speakers of Arabic, in two different registers, standard and colloquial . The tasThe empirical findings presented in this paper demonstrate a striking and hitherto unobserved parallel between three quite different phenomenological domains of human cognition, pointing toward a central role played by grammar in the architecture, ontogeny and phylogeny of cognition. These findings are summarized in In per se that is introduced by grammar, in the two remaining domains, thematic-role assignment is put to service to effect a further asymmetry: for metaphors, their unidirectionality and the distinction between source and target terms, and for schematological hybrids, their resolution and identification with one of their parents to the exclusion of the other. Finally, whereas for compositional semantics, any thematic role may be involved, in the case of metaphors and schematological hybrids, the thematic role involved is that of theme.In all three domains, the asymmetry introduced by grammar involves thematic-role assignment, albeit in rather different configurations. Whereas for compositional semantics and metaphors, one of the two terms assigns a thematic role to the other, for schematological hybrids, the term in question assigns a thematic role to the superordinate term, pointing toward its characterization as the head of the construction. Moreover, whereas for compositional semantics, it is thematic-role assignment applies to A, or in other words that B describes, characterizes or says something about A. Within some variants of formal semantic theory (argument, while the thematic-role-assigner B is its function. Alternatively, within the more psycholinguistically oriented theory of conceptual combination (schema, while the thematic-role-assigner B fills a particular slot within that schema. It should be kept in mind that the relationship between A and B is not one of predication in the usual sense of the word; while in some cases B may indeed be predicated of A, in other cases B may stand in an attributive relationship to A. Similarly, the relationship between A and B is not a pragmatically based relationship such as topic-comment; whereas in many contexts A may be the topic and B its comment, in other contexts a variety of other discourse configurations may obtain. Instead, we view thematic roles, including inter alia the generalized role of theme, as constituting particular manifestations of a deeper and more fundamental asymmetric semantic relationship integrating properties of the argument/function relation of formal semantics and the schema/slot-filler relation of conceptual combination theory.The role of theme made reference to in this paper is somewhat broader than that which is commonly assumed within many grammatical theories, which tend to focus on more semantically specific roles such as agent, patient, source, locative and so forth. To say that B assigns the role of theme to A is to assert that B c theory , the thebination , 1990, tWhy should grammar introduce asymmetric thematic-role assignment into otherwise symmetric cognitive structures? Given that thematic roles are part and parcel of our general conceptual structures, it is not obvious why their occurrence, in domains as diverse as compositional semantics, metaphors and schematological hybrids, should require, or at least be strongly supported by, the presence of grammar. We speculate that the answer to this question may lie in the central role played by the twin relations of predication and attribution in grammatical organization. In To summarize, this paper has provided novel empirical evidence, from compositional semantics, metaphors and schematological hybrids, for the existence of two distinct levels, or tiers of cognition, non-grammatical and grammatical, the latter derived from the former by the introduction of thematic-role assignment and its associated asymmetries. This two-tiered architecture, with grammatical cognition placed on top of non-grammatical cognition, is argued to reflect the phylogeny and ontogeny of cognition, proceeding hand in hand with the evolution and development of language and grammar.The results of this paper may perhaps be construed as supporting a variant of the so-called Whorf Hypothesis, one in which it is not the distinctive properties of particular languages, in contrast to other ones, that differentially shape our thought processes, but rather the universal properties shared by all languages that affect our common processes of conceptualization. This would also be in line with ipso facto, for the central role that grammar plays in human cognition.As important as we consider them to be, the findings of this paper remain tentative and preliminary. We expect that future investigations into other phenomenological domains will reveal further instances of grammar introducing asymmetries into cognitive structures, thereby providing further support for the distinction between non-grammatical and grammatical cognition, and, The datasets generated for this study are available on request to the corresponding author.Ethical review and approval was not required for the study on human participants in accordance with the local legislation and institutional requirements. Written informed consent from the participants’ legal guardian/next of kin was not required to participate in this study in accordance with the national legislation and the institutional requirements.DG and YS contributed equally to all aspects of this manuscript. The order in which the authors are listed is merely alphabetical.The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.


Current use of smartphone cameras by parents create opportunities for longitudinal home-video-assessments to monitor infant development. We developed and validated a home-video method for parents, enabling Pediatric Physical Therapists to assess infants’ gross motor development with the Alberta Infant Motor Scale (AIMS). The objective of the present study was to investigate the feasibility of this home-video method from the parents’ perspective.Parents of 59 typically developing infants (0–19 months) were recruited, 45 parents participated in the study. Information about dropout was collected. A sequential mixed methods design was used to examine feasibility, including questionnaires and semi-structured interviews. While the questionnaires inquired after the practical feasibility of the home-video method, the interviews also allowed parents to comment on their feelings and thoughts using the home-video method.Of 45 participating parents, 34 parents returned both questionnaires and eight parents agreed to an interview. Parent reported effort by the infants was very low: the home-video method is perceived as similar to the normal routine of playing. The parental effort level was acceptable. The main constraint parents reported was time planning. Parents noted it was sometimes difficult to find the right moment to record the infant’s motor behavior, that is, when parents were both at home and their baby was in the appropriate state. Technical problems with the web portal, reported by 28% of the parents were also experienced as a constraint. Positive factors mentioned by parents were: the belief that the home videos are valuable for family use, receiving feedback from a professional, the moments of one-on-one attention and interaction with their babies. Moreover, the process of recording the home videos resulted in an increased parental awareness of, and insight into, the gross motor development of their infant.The AIMS home-video method is feasible for parents of typically developing children. Most constraints are of a practical nature that can be addressed in future applications. Future research is needed to show whether the home-video method is also applicable for parents with an infant at risk of motor development problems. In recent years, the necessity of multiple testing to monitor infant motor development adequately has been stated in several studies –4. The uFor this reason, we developed and validated a home-video method which enables professionals to evaluate gross motor performance with the Alberta Infant Motor Scale (AIMS) , a validLately, the use of home videos made by parents to assess or evaluate development has been the subject of several studies –15. LibeThe uniqueness of the AIMS home-video method lies in the fact that parents have a leading role in executing the first part of the assessment, capturing gross motor performance. Apart from the instructions, parents do this on their own. Because most e-Health innovations do not make it to implementation in clinical practice , the feaThus, the overall objective of this study was to evaluate the feasibility of the AIMS home-video method for parents of TD infants, born at full term and between the ages of 1.5 to 19 months, from the parents’ perspective. In this study, feasibility was defined according to Karsh as ‘the extent to which an innovation can be successfully used or carried out within a given setting’ . AccordiBecause the present study not only focused on the process of the recording but also on parents’ experiences in this specific context, a prospective mixed methods design was chosen . In a min = 45) in the Netherlands. Parents were instructed to make five home videos of their child with a two-month interval between each video. Two cohorts of infants were included in the study, starting simultaneously. The first cohort comprised 18 infants who started at the age of 1.5 months and were subsequently recorded on video at 3.5, 5.5, 7.5 and 9.5 months. Infants in the second cohort (n = 27) were recorded by parents at the ages of 8.5, 10.5, 12.5, 14.5 and 16.5 months. The time frame for making each video was set at exactly 2 weeks. During the study, parents received reminders by e-mail of when to record a video.Study participants were parents of full-term-born TD infants (1.5–16.5 months) who had participated in a pilot study on longitudinal gross motor trajectories  and actual participation , a 10-point scale was used at T0 and T1 .To obtain information on the children’s longitudinal motor trajectories, Question 21 (T0) and Questions 20–23 (T1) were added to the questionnaires but not included in the current analyses.A topic list  reference nr.14–399/C, and both parents gave written informed consent. Additional written consent was obtained for the interviews.t-tests and Wilcoxon signed-rank tests were applied to detect changes in expectations and experiences of parents between T0 and T1. Only parents who filled in both questionnaires were included in the analyses (n = 34). Statistical analysis was carried out with IBM Statistical Package for the Social Sciences 21.0 .The mean and standard deviation on single items of the questionnaires (T0 and T1) were calculated. Paired samples To analyze the data from the interviews and from open-ended questions in the questionnaires, a thematic analysis with a general approach was used, guided by the research questions . After fn = 2); 2) parents reported that in retrospect they were too busy to participate (n = 11); 3) frequency of filming was too high (n = 1). Participating parents were residents of 8 of the 13 different provinces in the Netherlands. In total, 45 questionnaires were returned before the start of the study. Following the period of recording the five home videos, 34 surveys were returned . Table Although 59 parents provided informed consent, 45 participated in the pilot study. Parents who did not send in home videos were approached by telephone to inquire about the reasons for not participating. Reasons for dropping out were: 1) the baby was unexpectedly born prematurely or pathology became evident shortly after birth  feasibility of the home-video method, in which we combined both quantitative and qualitative data to gain insight into the extent that parents can carry out the home-video method successfully, and 2) parents’ feelings and thoughts that accompany the use of the home-video method. These results were mainly inductive qualitative outcomes.The findings are structured according to the process of making the home video: reading the instructions, planning when to make the recording, recording the home video, uploading the home video, and receiving feedback. First, the quantitative data are presented; next, the qualitative data are used to set the context and to clarify the quantitative findings. In Table ‘I didn’t think recording the video was very burdensome. Besides, it was fun to do. But, because of the technical issues uploading the video, it took much longer than expected and that made it somewhat frustrating’ .The quantitative data showed that the expected and experienced efforts of parents applying the home-video method were similar. Qualitative data revealed that parents who appraised the effort higher than expected primarily attributed this to technical issues during the uploading: ‘The video and the small exercises were no effort for him, I think he actually enjoyed it’ . In some cases, the infant was not in the right state, which made the recording a bit more demanding: ‘For as far I could see, it was no burden on my daughter. Sometimes, she was not in the mood but the exercises were not annoying. Besides, most of the time we were recording her spontaneous movements’ .Both the expected  and experienced  parent-reported effort of the home-video method for the infant were rated low, and not statistically different for T0 and T1. Parents highlighted this by stating they were primarily recording their baby’s spontaneous movements: The checklist was very handy, we had that at hand every time to see: did she show just about everything? It was sort of a guidebook. O.K., we put her down and we have to make sure she does all these items. I also thought, in terms of design, it looked really clear and gave explicit instructions’ . In a few cases, parents encountered some difficulties applying the checklists because they felt that none of the checklists fitted their infants’ motor abilities adequately at that time: ‘The first checklist, well, I felt like: this is too easy, he can do all this already. Checklist 1 was far too simple and he couldn’t do much of checklist 2’ .The parents rated the usability of the instructional videos as good. Furthermore, they described the checklists as very usable and clear  Table . The qua‘I found it quite hard because we both spent a lot of time at home with her, but not much time with all three of us’ . One mother explained how the recording of a very young infant could also lead to planning problems: ‘I also breastfeed and certainly in the beginning that takes such a long time so then it’s often when they’re awake you are busy feeding and afterwards they need a change, and those kind of things. Putting them on their tummy and exercising them was not an immediate priority’ .Quantitative data showed that parents thought planning the time to record the home video to be an impediment . The 2-week window in which parents could record the video was not always sufficient . These outcomes correspond with the qualitative data where time planning was expressed by a majority of parents as being the main barrier to recording the home video. Parents also mentioned other factors which interplayed with this main barrier. The necessary presence of two persons to record the home video made time planning more complicated. ‘Sometimes it was just difficult timing, you think oh yes now, but then they are tired and then, you really want them to show their best, and then you think: no, they are too tired to do it now’ .Also, the fact that parents preferred to choose a moment when the infant was in the right state for recording added up to quite a complex puzzle in today’s dynamic family life. Besides, we have another 5-year-old daughter who we didn’t want to have around at that moment because she wants the attention as well. We really needed to look for occasions when she wasn’t at home’ .Finally, the presence of an older brother or sister in the toddler or preschool age, could pose a dilemma: ‘Would I have preferred a researcher coming over here for each video moment? On the one hand, then you make the appointment and then it is set, yes? But then you’re stuck with it. This way, I could plan it in my own time. So, that’s a big advantage of doing the recording by yourself’ .Parents also experienced favorable aspects of the home-video method, such as being able to video the infant at home in their own time without a professional coming over to assess the infant’s gross motor development. ‘It is of course very accessible, you don’t have to leave, nobody has to come to your house and you can record a video and get a reaction to that. So I think it can only be more convenient’ .A father puts it like this: ‘‘We went on a holiday and made the videos, and once we recorded the video at my parents’ house, so we did film her at diverse locations. With such a small baby that is no problem, of course.’ .The home appeared not to be the only suitable place for recording the videos. In multiple cases, infants were recorded during a visit or stay with the grandparents. Also, during holiday seasons, some parents sent home-video material from camping sites, apartments and cottages from all parts of the world. p = 0.046) . However, due to the daily use of the smartphone as a camera, some parents already had a lot of photo and video files stored on their smartphone. This might explain the significant negative change in the experiences parents had regarding the technical aspects: ‘After a few videos, the memory card in my smartphone was full. So I had to upload and remove photos, which takes time. After that I’m able to continue recording, in the hope my baby still wants to cooperate’ .In advance (T0), parents did not expect  the technical aspects of the recording  to become a problem. At T1 , the experience was rated not much but still statistically significantly higher in difficulty .Parents found it easy to position their child in accordance with the instructions .Parents also rated the prompting of specific movements as feasible to perform . However, 77% of parents stated their child did show optimal motor performance or even showed new motor abilities during the recording.Although most infants were recorded at a convenient time and in the right state, some parents noted that their infant did not show optimal motor performance during recording. In the questionnaire, 23% of parents indicated that their child did not show optimal motor performance in the final home video. Reasons for this were 1) the state of the infant, 2) the infant was distracted by the camera and 3) by coincidence. This could lead to some frustration for both parent and child: ‘p < 0.001). Due to instability of the software during the pilot, the web portal was not always functioning properly which made uploading more time-consuming. Approximately, 28% of parents encountered these difficulties. Parents also reported this as a factor that increased the overall effort they experienced during the pilot. Where mothers were most involved in the study, fathers played an important role in dealing with the digital problems. ‘I kept aloof from that [uploading home videos], I am not that into transferring videos onto the computer, so that was my husband’s thing. I was into the recording and telling him what we had to do and he mainly did the technical part’ .In advance, parents did not expect that uploading the home videos to the web portal would lead to any obstacles . However, afterwards this theme demonstrated a significant negative change . In this context, the feedback was mentioned as an important motivator to stay involved in the study.In the questionnaires, most parents reported that the feedback on the motor development of their child gave no cause for concern  .One parent thought the feedback was a less important part of the process. For her, seeing her baby perform was the most enjoyable element: In addition to the perspective parents gave on the practical aspects of feasibility, they also expressed their ‘feelings and thoughts’ which accompanied their new role in applying the AIMS home-video method. Parents expressed both negative and positive feelings and thoughts. In Fig. ‘You are just not sure if you did the recording the right way, so I just went ahead and made the video but still I wasn’t certain’ .During recording, some parents experienced insecurity about the motor development of their child. Also, some of them reported insecurities about whether they had recorded the movements and postures as intended. Especially when recording for the first time, they expressed questions about the duration of the recording and how long they should keep on facilitating: At the start, I found it a bit difficult to see that T. scored quite low, but that was a result of my insecurity as a mother’ .The qualitative data showed that a few parents, whose children scored below average on one or more occasion, did experience some concerns when they received feedback: ‘At that moment, I wanted him to show the good things, yes I felt quite strong about that. After all, you would get feedback on it and it was about his development. You knew he already was able to do some things but when he was tired, he didn’t show it that well’ . Some parents even considered making a new recording because they were not satisfied with the first. However, parents refrained from this because of time constraints.Almost all parents expressed it was important their child would show the best on the home video: ‘And somehow, with your firstborn you probably have it [one-on-one attention] more. She is my second and I almost felt like I wanted to give her this attention to her motor development’ .Many parents reported that, despite the effort involved, they did enjoy the individual attention and time spent with their baby: ‘‘So I did notice, especially in the beginning, that suddenly you start realizing what she is doing. You really start very focused observing’ . In one case, parents were alarmed by what they observed in the instruction videos: ‘By looking at the instruction videos, we realized that our son lagged behind in his motor development, so we contacted a Pediatric Physical Therapist’ .The active involvement of parents in recording the home video appeared to have some side effects triggered by the fact that parents interacted with their baby in a different way. By looking at the instruction video and the checklists, several parents reported they gained knowledge about, and became more aware of, their baby’s motor development: Yes, well also regarding tummy time, we found out that the baby enjoyed to move around on a larger surface. Because we saw the effect it had, we did it more often’ .Some parents also acquired new insights in how to optimize motor development: ‘For the participating parents, who all have TD infants, the main encouragement to participate was to obtain valuable home video material which captured the motor development of their baby over a period of time. Another key to compliance was the feedback on their infants’ motor development. Parents found the extra developmental monitoring of their infant both reassuring and interesting.The present study explored the experiences of parents in using a home-video method to assess their infants’ gross motor development. Overall, parents were positive about the practical feasibility of the home-video method. They reported that the recordings were easy to do and that the handling of the baby was mostly as in daily routines. Several barriers were identified in this study. The main barrier reported was time planning. A second barrier concerned technical problems with the web portal, which sometimes made uploading the home-videos time consuming. According to parents, positive factors of this home-video method were (1) that the home videos were valuable for family use, (2) that receiving feedback from a professional about infants’ motor development was welcome, and (3) that it was fun to interact with their babies in a different way and to have a moment of one-on-one-attention. Moreover, the instructions and home video recording resulted in an increased parental awareness of, and insight into, the gross motor development of their infants. The feelings and thoughts parents expressed about their new role were both positive and negative. In some cases, parents expressed their uncertainty about the motor performance of their child or about the video recordings. Parents also reported joyful feelings about the interaction they had with their baby while making the home videos. In addition, most parents appreciated the feedback on the motor development of their child which they found reassuring.For future application, it is important to address all barriers identified in this study . Time plFrom the results, we can conclude that a functional and user-friendly digital application is an absolute prerequisite for successful implementation of this method. This is exactly in line with the conclusions of Ricci et al. . The maiIn addition, in the development and use of digital communication means, the privacy of parents and infants is considered to be very important . In our Libertus and Violi, who used Skype as a means of collecting developmental data, suggested that access to the Internet and digital equipment could also be a constraint for parents’ participation in these kind of research projects . In our Only a few studies describe the feasibility of digital screening methods for parents at home –15, 24. Although some parents reported that their child did not always show optimal motor performance on the home videos, we speculate that this might be overstated. The importance parents placed on their child’s showing optimal motor performance on the home video might sometimes have resulted in a more negative perception of the child’s performance. For example, if an infant had shown rolling over from supine to prone for the first time just before the recordings, it is quite likely not to be shown in the home video, and parents could feel disappointed about this. For a professional assessing the home video, not seeing the infant rolling over would not necessary influence the validity of the assessment; rolling over might just not yet be in the infant’s motor repertoire.An important finding of this study is the teaching effect the AIMS home-video method potentially has. The method requires active parental involvement which can lead to a better understanding of the infant’s motor development , 32. ParThis study is the first that not only reports outcomes on practical feasibility of home video assessments but also attempts to grasp the feelings and thoughts of parents. Parents are the most important stakeholders in the home-video method and their experiences have to be acknowledged for successful implementation. The mixed methods design, a combination of questionnaires and interviews, provided rich information about the experiences of parents. The main outcomes of both qualitative and quantitative data reinforced each other and were thus complementary. The interviews clarified and illustrated the quantitative findings . The theOur study is subject to the following limitations. The advanced educational level of the majority of participating parents limits the generalizability of the results. The checklists do demand some literacy and might therefore not fit parents who are less educated. On the other hand, the additional instruction videos could partially solve this barrier. In the population-based study of Kwong et al., it became evident that families of lower socio-economic status who used the Baby Moves app were less likely to return scorable videos . Educatin = 34). These data indicate that the longitudinal aspect of the study was probably the main reason for dropout. Another limiting factor was that a majority of parents who signed up to participate (filled out the questionnaires and participated in the interviews) were mothers. The young age of some of the participating infants (as low as 1.5 months at the start) might have played a role in this phenomenon. Having maternity leave, Dutch mothers were probably more available and willing to become involved in research than fathers. Although most parents worked together to record the home videos, it was mainly the experiences of the mothers that were collected in both questionnaires and interviews. This is a known limitation in infant studies [The dropout rate in this study was considerable which threatens feasibility. However, we investigated both the feasibility of the home video method and the feasibility of applying it longitudinally. We asked parents with a young baby to commit themselves to the study for a period of 9 months. All parents who participated in the pilot, delivered one to five adequate home videos, which shows the home-video method itself was feasible for these parents. It was mainly the final questionnaire (T1) which was returned poorly n = . These dThe present study provides evidence that the AIMS home-video method is feasible for participating parents regarding both practical aspects and the understanding of their task. Most identified barriers reported by parents have a practical nature that can be addressed in future applications. The home-video method has the potential to become a valuable E-health addition for both research and PPT practice to monitor infants at risk of developmental motor delay in their own familiar environment.More research is needed to explore if these findings are applicable to parents with different backgrounds and to parents of infants at risk. How will these parents experience a more explicit role in the assessment of their child’s risk for a delay in motor development? Will the active involvement of parents indeed lead to increased awareness and knowledge of motor development? In short, can the AIMS home-video method become more than just a means and become a tool to empower parents who have an infant at risk of developmental delay?Additional file 1: Online questionnaire for parents.Additional file 2: Topic list used for interviews with parents.Additional file 3: Checklist I - III AIMS home-video method for parents.