Perceiving the Real World: Infants’ Detection of and Memory for Social Information
Arlene S. Walker-Andrews
Department of Psychology, Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey
Lorraine E. Bahrick
Department of Psychology, Florida International University

Research on infants’ perception and memory for social information are discussed with respect to the concept of ecological validity. We argue that the use of dynamic, multimodal displays in familiar contexts is critical to understanding infants’ developing perception. We also discuss the importance of generalizing appropriately from experimental to real-world contexts and of using converging methods in the investigation of infants’ capabilities.