The development of the looking A-not-B task (Bell & Adams, 1999) provides an example of global and local changes in task design that can be implemented to reduce motor artifacts. The reaching A-not-B task creates too many motor artifacts for data analysis. Clearly, eye movements (looking A-not-B) produce fewer artifacts than reaching movements (reaching A-not-B). Smaller changes in task design can also increase the amount of artifact-free data. During the looking task, infants were less likely to lean and/or reach if they were not within reaching distance of the table (i.e., location of the desirable object; see Figure 1). Importantly, within-subjects comparisons of performance of looking and reaching versions of the A-not-B task suggest that the same cognitive processes are required for both versions (Bell & Adams, 1999; Cuevas & Bell, 2010).
