HARWICK INSTITUTE — BEHAVIORAL GENETICS LAB PHENOTYPE ASSESSMENT NOTES — DPB Development M.L. Reyes — 1993 [WORKING DOCUMENT] ===================================================================== NOTES ON ASSESSMENT BATTERY DEVELOPMENT AND VALIDATION Divergence Phenotype Battery (DPB) v.1.0 → v.2.1 ===================================================================== The DPB was developed iteratively over 1988–1993. These notes document the development process and the reasoning behind the scoring criteria. They are not a formal methods document. See the lab handbook for formal protocols. --------------------------------------------------------------------- CRITERION 1: AFFECTIVE RESISTANCE The first criterion is the most consistently observed and the easiest to operationalize. High-expression subjects show measurable differences in emotional contagion tasks: they register the emotional stimulus (their physiological responses confirm this) but the stimulus does not complete the usual behavioral circuit. In practical terms: show a high-expression subject a film clip designed to induce sadness. A neurotypical subject shows visible behavioral indicators of sadness — facial expression, posture, voice — within 30–90 seconds. A high-expression subject shows a flat behavioral profile during the clip. Their cortisol spikes slightly. They report, in post-session interview, that they found the clip "interesting" or "sad, in retrospect." "In retrospect" is a phrase I have heard more than thirty times in subject interviews. It took me an embarrassingly long time to realize this was diagnostically significant. The emotion is present. It is not synchronized. It arrives later, processed rather than experienced in the moment of exposure. Scoring notes: 4 = clear evidence of resistance across multiple stimulus types 3 = evidence in majority of stimuli; some synchronous responses 2 = mixed; difficult to distinguish from introversion or shyness 1 = typical profile; no significant resistance observed The difficulty at the 2-level is real. The DPB can reliably distinguish 4s and 3s from the general population. The 2-level overlaps substantially with introverted-neurotypical profiles. I am still working on this boundary. --------------------------------------------------------------------- CRITERION 2: STIMULUS INTEGRATION LATENCY This one was hardest to operationalize because the subjects themselves didn't initially understand what I was asking about. The breakthrough came in 1991, during an interview with a G3 subject (PRG-0029, female, born 1965, Oregon program). I had been asking about emotional response timing in the standard way — "how quickly do you feel things" — and getting vague answers. Then she said, unprompted: "I always feel things exactly right, just not when they're happening." I reframed the question for every subsequent interview. Now I ask: "Can you describe a time when you had a strong emotional reaction to something that happened a while ago — days or weeks after it happened?" High-expression subjects have immediate, vivid answers. Low-expression subjects look at me blankly. The delay seems to range from hours to weeks depending on the stimulus intensity. Stronger stimuli take longer, not shorter. This is the inverse of what standard arousal models would predict. I don't have a theoretical explanation for this yet. Scoring notes: 4 = clear latency pattern, subject articulates it spontaneously 3 = clear on follow-up probing 2 = ambiguous; possible confound with rumination or depression 1 = no evidence of significant latency --------------------------------------------------------------------- CRITERION 3: CALIBRATION RESISTANCE This is the criterion I find most theoretically interesting and most difficult to explain to colleagues without sounding like I'm describing a personality trait rather than a genetic one. Calibration resistance is not stubbornness. It's not contrarianism. It's not poor socialization. It's something more specific: a reduced responsiveness to the ongoing social process by which humans adjust their behavior, values, and self-presentation in response to feedback from their environment. Neurotypical individuals perform this adjustment constantly, automatically, largely unconsciously. Watch any social interaction and you'll see it: people modulating their affect, their word choice, their body language, their stated opinions in real time in response to micro-feedback from the people around them. High-expression subjects participate in social interaction. They are not reclusive or antisocial. They are often highly effective communicators. But they don't complete the calibration loop. The feedback is received; it does not produce the adjustment. In clinical contexts, this has been consistently misread as rigidity, arrogance, or poor empathy. In the interviews I've conducted, it presents more like: a person who is genuinely responsive and genuinely interested in other people, but who is not, at any level, susceptible to social pressure to become a different person. One subject said: "I understand what people want me to feel. I just don't feel it because they want me to." That sentence is the whole criterion. In population terms, this is the trait that makes these individuals identifiable. They stand out not because they're cold — they're not cold — but because they don't reflect back what you project onto them. They receive it and hold it separately. For a researcher studying behavioral genetics, this is a fascinating population. For anyone trying to change their behavior through social pressure, reward, or punishment, they are extraordinarily difficult to work with. I keep thinking about that in the context of the programs. If you were trying to study this trait — or use it — you'd want to identify these children early. You'd want to know exactly how resistant they were. --------------------------------------------------------------------- BATTERY VALIDATION NOTES The DPB was validated against a control group of 40 neurotypical adults in 1992. Discrimination between cohort subjects (n=62) and controls was 91% accurate at the 3+ score level. The battery has not been validated against clinical populations (ASD, alexithymia, attachment disorders). This remains a gap. I intend to address it in the next phase of research. T.J.K. suggested in March that I validate against a dissociation measure. I have been thinking about this. I don't think dissociation is the right frame — the subjects are present, not absent — but the distinction may be worth formalizing. [notes end — October 7, 1993]