
pmid: 28088051
Testing infants in the laboratory is expensive in time and money; consequently, many studies are underpowered, reducing their reproducibility. We investigated whether the online platform, Amazon Mechanical Turk (MTurk), could be used as a resource to more easily recruit and measure the behavior of infant populations. Using a looking time paradigm, with users' webcams we recorded how long infants aged 5 to 8months attended while viewing children's television programs. We found that infants (N=57) were more reliably engaged by some movies than by others and that the most engaging movies could maintain attention for approximately 70% of a 10- to 13-min period. We then identified the cinematic features within the movies. Faces, singing-and-rhyming, and camera zooms were found to increase infant attention. Together, we established that MTurk can be used as a rapid tool for effectively recruiting and testing infants.
Male, Internet, Patient Selection, Infant, Reproducibility of Results, Experimental and Cognitive Psychology, Infant Behavior, Developmental and Educational Psychology, Crowdsourcing, Humans, Attention, Female, Television, Software
Male, Internet, Patient Selection, Infant, Reproducibility of Results, Experimental and Cognitive Psychology, Infant Behavior, Developmental and Educational Psychology, Crowdsourcing, Humans, Attention, Female, Television, Software
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