Andrew N. Meltzoff - Methodological Innovations

Methodological Innovations

Preverbal infant psychology is notoriously difficult to study. Meltzoff and his colleagues had to develop new techniques for eliciting and interpreting infant responses to stimuli. One method was measuring an infant's visual preference for an object. In one study, infants were allowed to touch but not see a distinctively shaped object. Later they were shown (but could not touch) that object and a different object. The length of time they gazed at each object was measured. Infants looked longer at the object they had previously touched, thus demonstrating an ability to recognize the object with a different sense.

In another experiment, babies' sucking on a pacifier was recorded, and a picture was shown to them. When the sucking stopped, the picture disappeared. Babies were found to suck longer when the picture showed a familiar face than when it showed an unfamiliar one.