A novel on-demand remote testing system for infant visual perception

Abstract

Although recent advances in the tools and platforms used for remote psychological experiments have allowed experimental psychologists to safely continue their research during the COVID-19 pandemic, procedures for remote studies of infant vision are not established. Here, we report a newly developed procedure for on-demand remote experiments on infant vision. We provided participants (parents of infants) with a portable apparatus (a computer tablet) and instructions for conducting the experiments in their homes. A custom application controlled the stimulus presentation and video recording of infant behavior via the tablet’s front-facing camera. Videos of the infants’ looking behaviors saved on the tablet were analyzed off-line by the experimenters. Using this method, we tested 24 infants aged 6–12 months and successfully replicated the findings of previous lab-based studies on optic flow perception in infancy. The newly developed method holds promise for use in remote studies of infant vision.