Behavioral Coding
Video recordings of infants’ and young children’s behavior can be rich sources of data. To standardize the types of behaviors we are interested in, we develop coding schemes that precisely operationalize what is counted as, for example, a “look” or a “touch” in a particular study.
![This image shows a research assistant at work sitting at a table in front of a computer. On the computer screen is a video of a mother and child in a garden and a behavioral coding program.](/334374/original-1598522365.jpg?t=eyJ3aWR0aCI6MjQ2LCJvYmpfaWQiOjMzNDM3NH0%3D--f6941ba953a53d397c917f71204f4c092bac2809)
© MPI for Human Development
With the help of behavioral coding software, our research assistants comb through video recordings to identify how often and long behaviors of interest occur, as well as the time sequence. This technique can be used with videos of our tightly controlled laboratory studies, as well as with videos of infants and young children in naturalistic settings.