The global spread of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has presented significant challenges to conducting psychological experiments within traditional laboratory settings over the past few years. In response to these constraints, the field of experimental psychology has witnessed a refinement in various non–face-to-face and remote experimental methodologies. This paper introduces a novel remote experimental approach that is specifically tailored for visual development experiments in infants. It was developed by the research group led by the author (Shirai et al., 2022). The objective of this paper was to explore the potential role and significance of these methods as alternatives to in-person experiments during the COVID-19 pandemic and to consider their applicability in the postpandemic era.

Behavioral experiments with infants are generally costly, and developmental scientists often struggle with recruiting participants. Online experiments are an effective approach to address these issues by offering alternative routes to expand sample sizes and access more diverse populations. However, data collection procedures in online experiments have not been sufficiently established. Differences in procedures between laboratory and online experiments can lead to other issues such as decreased data quality and the need for preprocessing. Moreover, data collection platforms for non-English speaking participants remain scarce. This article introduces the Japanese version of Lookit, a platform dedicated to online looking-time experiments for infants. Lookit is integrated into Children Helping Science, a broader platform for online developmental studies operated by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (Cambridge, MA, USA). In addition, we review the state-of-the-art of automated gaze coding algorithms for infant studies and provide methodological considerations that researchers should consider when conducting online experiments. We hope this article will serve as a starting point for promoting online experiments with young children in Japan and contribute to creating a more robust developmental science.

The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic led to a rapid increase in the number of experiments conducted online. Online experiments have many advantages, besides preventing the spread of the virus. Online experiments with children overcome some problems of in-person experiments and can help advance developmental research. Thus, an increasing number of online experiments are presumedly being conducted, even in the post-COVID era. However, original articles and review articles, which provide a practical guide to online experiments, have mostly involved adult participants but rarely children. Therefore, the aim of this paper was to provide a broad picture of the pros and cons of online experiments with children and introduce the authors’ prior work.

To examine which process of observational studies in psychology was adversely affected by the coronavirus pandemic, we first confirmed the characteristics of the “observation method,” based on a review of the Japanese literature to date. In addition, we conducted interviews with Japanese observational researchers who had worked during the coronavirus pandemic to ascertain how they continued their research activities at a time when observing study participants was difficult. Furthermore, by introducing specific examples of observational research conducted during the pandemic, the possibility of the development of observational research in psychology in the postpandemic era is discussed.

The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic constrained some research and practice methods. This paper reviews research on neurodevelopmental disorders during the pandemic, explores their impact, and proposes future methodologies. Reducing the risk of study suspensions—for example, by conducting online recruitment and research in normal times–is a need. The neurodevelopmental group experienced exacerbated symptoms during the pandemic. This finding is partly attributable to pre-existing factors in neurodevelopmental disorders. Some reports have highlighted the usefulness of telemedicine and the validity of online psychological testing, which can be useful for individuals with mobility difficulties and vulnerability to environmental change. Reports also indicate that online psychological testing has some problems such as participant bias and the accuracy of background information. However, online psychological testing also has the advantage of accessing individuals who would be difficult to engage in face-to-face testing. To ensure smooth research during pandemic-like situations, examining pandemic-era findings and developing guidelines are vital. Utilizing face-to-face and online research advantages is expected to advance neurodevelopmental disorder research, thereby accumulating insights into and supporting atypical development.

Developmental research on infants in Japan currently faces problems such as a declining population of infants, difficulties in training developmental researchers, and reproducibility issues in science. In response to these problems, we have developed the Baby’s Online Live Database (BOLD). BOLD is an open platform for conducting longitudinal studies to clarify causal relationships in development that many developmental researchers and parents want to understand. To embrace the parental perspective, we implemented a system to monitor opinions and requests from parents. We will also return the findings to society, thereby making BOLD a valuable resource for parents and researchers. This paper begins with an overview of the current challenges. We will then explain the BOLD approach to address these challenges. After comparing similar attempts overseas, we will conclude by presenting BOLD in its ongoing form.

In developmental psychology research focused on infants, several experiments have been conducted, primarily within controlled laboratory settings, and many results have been obtained. However, these datasets are limited to fragmentary records within a specialized laboratory context, limited by time and scope. To tackle such restrictions, we believe that collecting data in real-world environments will be necessary. In view of this, we have developed GO-E-MON, an online experiment platform leveraging a distributed personal data store (PDS), for conducting experiments in real-world settings. GO-E-MON is designed to provide the requisite security protocols for real-world experimentation with distributed PDS, while also being scalable for large-scale use and seamless integration with external systems. We are using GO-E-MON as our experimental environment for real-world-oriented experiments with high school students’ learning. We present a case study illustrating its application. In addition, we believe that the development of an online experimental platform capable of safeguarding personal data represents an important issue in infant research oriented toward real-world applications.

In recent years, developmental psychologists have made efforts to pursue research with high replicability via open science practices. Pre-registration, which is among these practices, is the focus of this article. The aim of this study was to review how pre-registration is implemented in the developmental psychology area. Our investigation into developmental psychology research from 2020 to 2022 revealed a low prevalence of implementing pre-registration domestically and internationally. As a possible explanation for this, we argue that developmental psychology often features hypothesis-generating studies, as well as hypothesis-discovering studies with a low likelihood of deriving a specific hypothesis from multiple hypotheses. However, hypothesis-generating and hypothesis-discovering studies have their respective pre-registration methods. This article introduces recent practical examples of their implementation. Furthermore, in addressing the limitations of relying solely on pre-registration for achieving highly replicable research, we highlighted the importance of developing theories that guide the identification of specific, plausible hypotheses among multiple alternatives. In conclusion, in the realm of developmental psychology, we propose that pre-registration could become a potent tool to enhance the credibility of hypothesis-generating and hypothesis-exploring studies. Accumulating such studies will be essential to construct and validate theories.