Hi Irene,
Yes – it is possible to calculate motion-energy values from recordings of children-parent interactions.
However, as you mention yourself:
“if the constant moving around of the participants, or the shared use of the objects, contact between participants, ect. would pose a problem with the ROI area selection.”
These instances will most probably pose problems, because participants (here children and parents) cannot cross into each other’s regions. The ROIs have to belong to one and only one person. Sharing objects will thus also be a problem (because of potential ROI-crossing).
In other words: MEA may be applied, but you would have to make sure that instances of ROI-crossing are left out of the analysis (e.g. by trimming the video, or by deleting these sequences later in the rawdata).
Alternatively, you might consider a different approach based on something else than frame-differencing. (e.g. a machine-learning based approach such as OpenPose)
Best, Fabian
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