ManyBabies 5: A large-scale investigation of the proposed shift from familiarity preference to novelty preference in infant looking time

Abstract

Much of our basic understanding of cognitive and social processes in infancy relies on measures of looking time, and specifically on infants’ visual preference for a novel or familiar stimulus. However, despite being the foundation of many behavioral tasks in infant research, the determinants of infants’ visual preferences are poorly understood, and differences in the expression of preferences can be difficult to interpret. In this large-scale study, we test predictions from the Hunter and Ames model of infants' visual preferences. We investigate the effects of three factors predicted by this model to determine infants’ preference for novel versus familiar stimuli: age, stimulus familiarity, and stimulus complexity. Drawing from a large and diverse sample of infant participants (minimum expected sample size N = 1,280), this study aims to provide empirical evidence for a robust and generalizable model of infant visual preferences, leading to a more solid theoretical foundation for understanding the mechanisms that underlie infants’ responses in common behavioral paradigms. Moreover, we hope that our findings will guide future studies that rely on infants' visual preferences to measure cognitive and social processes.