Committee: 

Dr. Clifford, Advisor

Dr. AlRegib, Co-Advisor

Dr. Emelianov, Chair

Dr. Ploetz

Abstract: The objective of the proposed research is to develop methods to phenotype social behaviors using cameras in a privacy preserving manner. Further, this work hypothesizes that social behaviors change with change in cognitive states such as the progression of mild cognitive impairment and lead up to self-harming behaviors in autism spectrum disorder. To validate this hypothesis, the methods developed to identify and phenotype behaviors are used. Cameras are used due to their ability to capture the context in which behaviors occur in addition to the behavior if individuals of interest, which is vital in understanding social behaviors. To ensure privacy of users, useful features are extracted and utilized from cameras rather than using the raw images captured.