Best practices for Electronically Activated Recorder (EAR) research: A practical guide to coding and processing EAR data

Kaplan, Deanna M.; Rentscher, Kelly E.; Lim, Maximilian; Reyes, Ramón Gerardo Recio; Keating, Dylan; Romero, Jennifer; Shah, Anisha; Smith, Aaren D.; York, Kylee A.; Milek, Anne; Tackman, Allison Mary; Mehl, Matthias R.

doi:10.3758/s13428-019-01333-y

Cited by 32 publications

(33 citation statements)

References 40 publications

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“…In-person contact with an ex-partner was assessed by the EAR method. Please see https://osf.io/93yrk/ to access the full set of study procedures and measures; see Kaplan et al (2020) for a description of the coding process and best practices in using the EAR. The EAR records sound bites on a customizable timescale.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Contact With an Ex-Partner Is Associated With Psychological Distress After Marital Separation

O’Hara

Grinberg

Tackman

et al. 2020

Clinical Psychological Science

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In this study, we examined the association between naturalistically observed in-person contact with an ex-partner and separation-related psychological distress (SRPD). One hundred twenty-two recently separated adults were assessed using the Electronically Activated Recorder on three occasions across 5 months. The association between in-person contact with an ex-partner, as a between-person variable, and concurrent SRPD was not reliably different from zero, nor was the time-varying effect of in-person contact. However, more frequent in-person contact with an ex-partner predicted higher SRPD 2 months later, above and beyond the variance accounted for by concurrent in-person contact, demographic, relationship, and attachment factors. Follow-up analyses showed that this effect was present only for people without children; a 1 SD increase in in-person contact offset and slowed the predicted decline in SRPD over 2 months by 112%. In our discussion, we emphasize new ways to think about the role of in-person contact in shaping adults’ psychological adjustment to separation over time.

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Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Contact With an Ex-Partner Is Associated With Psychological Distress After Marital Separation

O’Hara

Grinberg

Tackman

et al. 2020

Clinical Psychological Science

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“…All participants for whom valid data were available were included in an intent-to-treat analysis of study outcomes. Dawans et al, 2011), and then (3) wore the Electronically Activated Recorder (EAR) (Kaplan et al, 2020;Mehl, 2017) for one weekend to provide naturalistic observation data about their daily social behaviors and interactions. After receiving the eight-week interventions, participants underwent the same self-report, biological stress reactivity, and EAR assessment again as a post-intervention measure.…”

Section: Participantsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The EAR is a digital audio recorder worn by participants that captures snippets of ambient sound from the wearer's environment, yielding an "acoustic diary" of participants' daily activities, behaviors, and social interactions (Kaplan et al, 2020;Mehl, 2017;Mehl et al, 2001). This ecological behavioral observation method has been used in a wide range of both clinical and healthy populations, ranging from childhood to old age (Mehl, 2017).…”

Section: Observed Daily Behavior and Language Usementioning

confidence: 99%

Implications of a “null” randomized controlled trial of mindfulness and compassion interventions in healthy adults

Kaplan¹,

Mehl²,

Cole³

2022

Preprint

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Objective: Extensive research suggests that short-term meditation interventions may hold therapeutic promise for a wide range of psychosocial outcomes. In response to calls to subject these interventions to more methodologically rigorous tests, a randomized controlled trial tested the effectiveness of a mindfulness meditation intervention and a compassion meditation intervention against an active control in a sample of demographically diverse, medically and psychiatrically healthy adults. Methods: Two hundred and four participants completed a battery of questionnaires to assess psychological experience, participated in a laboratory stress test to measure their biological stress reactivity, and wore the Electronically Activated Recorder (EAR) to assess daily behaviors before and after an eight-week intervention (mindfulness meditation intervention, compassion meditation intervention, or health education discussion group). Results: Neither meditation intervention reliably impacted participants’ subjective experience, biological stress reactivity, or objectively assessed daily behaviors. Further, post-hoc moderation analyses found that neither baseline distress nor intervention engagement significantly moderated the effects. Conclusion: Results from this trial – which was methodologically rigorous and powered to detect all but small effects – were essentially null. These results are an important data point for the body of research about meditation interventions. Implications of these non-significant effects are discussed in the context of prior studies, and future directions for contemplative intervention research are recommended.

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“…One solution for this is to inspect change profiles of responses [ 92 ] instead of raw scores. Another solution would naturally be tapping into wearable data; for example, electronically-activated recorders [ 148 ] are maturing as a technology, and complexity methods have already been applied to physical activity data during a weight loss intervention [ 129 ].…”

Section: Limitationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Studying Behaviour Change Mechanisms under Complexity

Heino

Knittle

Noone

et al. 2021

Behavioral Sciences

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Understanding the mechanisms underlying the effects of behaviour change interventions is vital for accumulating valid scientific evidence, and useful to informing practice and policy-making across multiple domains. Traditional approaches to such evaluations have applied study designs and statistical models, which implicitly assume that change is linear, constant and caused by independent influences on behaviour (such as behaviour change techniques). This article illustrates limitations of these standard tools, and considers the benefits of adopting a complex adaptive systems approach to behaviour change research. It (1) outlines the complexity of behaviours and behaviour change interventions; (2) introduces readers to some key features of complex systems and how these relate to human behaviour change; and (3) provides suggestions for how researchers can better account for implications of complexity in analysing change mechanisms. We focus on three common features of complex systems (i.e., interconnectedness, non-ergodicity and non-linearity), and introduce Recurrence Analysis, a method for non-linear time series analysis which is able to quantify complex dynamics. The supplemental website provides exemplifying code and data for practical analysis applications. The complex adaptive systems approach can complement traditional investigations by opening up novel avenues for understanding and theorising about the dynamics of behaviour change.

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Best practices for Electronically Activated Recorder (EAR) research: A practical guide to coding and processing EAR data

Cited by 32 publications

References 40 publications

Contact With an Ex-Partner Is Associated With Psychological Distress After Marital Separation

Contact With an Ex-Partner Is Associated With Psychological Distress After Marital Separation

Implications of a “null” randomized controlled trial of mindfulness and compassion interventions in healthy adults

Studying Behaviour Change Mechanisms under Complexity

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