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Related Experiment Video

Updated: Nov 16, 2025

A Within-subjects Experimental Protocol to Assess the Effects of Social Input on Infant EEG

A Within-subjects Experimental Protocol to Assess the Effects of Social Input on Infant EEG

Published on: May 3, 2017

Infant effects on experimenter behavior.

Wallace E Dixon¹, Lauren P Driggers-Jones¹, Chelsea L Robertson¹

¹Department of Psychology, East Tennessee State University, Johnson City, TN, United States.

Infant Behavior & Development

|February 28, 2021

Summary

This summary is machine-generated.

Experimenter behavior in infant studies is influenced by infant temperament. Even experienced researchers looked longer at targets when infants showed high effortful control or surgency, suggesting bidirectional influences in lab settings.

Keywords:

Ecological validity Experimental fidelity Temperament

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Area of Science:

Developmental Psychology
Infant Research

Background:

Infant research often involves human experimenters, yet their influence on study outcomes is under-examined.
Understanding experimenter behavior is crucial for interpreting findings in developmental studies.

Purpose of the Study:

To investigate how infant temperament affects experimenter looking behavior during a gaze-following task.
To explore the bidirectional influences within the experimenter-infant dyad in a controlled lab setting.

Main Methods:

Two experienced experimenters conducted a gaze-following task with 62 15-month-old infants.
A distraction (Elmo video) was introduced in the latter half of the six-trial procedure.
Infant temperament was assessed via caregiver ratings of effortful control and surgency.

Main Results:

Experimenters looked significantly longer at target objects during non-distracted trials.
This prolonged looking behavior correlated with infants rated high on effortful control or surgency.
Experimenters were blind to infant temperament, indicating an unconscious influence.

Conclusions:

Experimenter behavior in infant studies is subtly modulated by infant characteristics, specifically temperament.
Lab-based infant research should consider the experimenter as an integral part of the social system, influencing results.
Findings underscore the need to account for experimenter-infant interactions in research design and interpretation.