Final answer:
The technique in infant perception research that measures an infant's preference by tracking gaze patterns is called the Preferential Looking Paradigm. It reveals innate preferences such as a focus on human faces or familiar voices, contributing vital information about infant development.
Step-by-step explanation:
The infant perception research technique that involves giving an infant a choice at what to look at, and then observing for a consistent preference for one stimulus over another, is known as the Preferential Looking Paradigm.
In this method, researchers present infants with two different stimuli simultaneously and measure the length of time the infant gazes at each one. This approach assumes that infants will look longer at the object or image they find more interesting or engaging. Relevant to this topic, infants have been found to show a clear preference for looking at human faces over other objects, an innate behavior that likely promotes bonding and social interaction. Even from the earliest days, they exhibit strong preferences for listening to human voices and in particular their mother's voice, as demonstrated by changes in the infants' sucking patterns on a pacifier when hearing familiar versus unfamiliar voices.
Focused on assessing perception, the Preferential Looking Paradigm has been instrumental in various studies, including those looking at infants' abilities to perceive and discriminate objects, human faces, and auditory stimuli. Cognitive abilities, such as understanding object permanence or the knowledge that objects continue to exist even when they are out of sight, have also been explored through similar structured observation methods. Such research contributes significantly to our understanding of infant development and sensory capabilities