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“Tangible as Tissue”: Arnold Gesell, Infant Behavior, and Film Analysis

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 July 2011

Scott Curtis
Scott Curtis*
Affiliation:
Northwestern University
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Argument

From 1924 to 1948, developmental psychologist Arnold Gesell regularly used photographic and motion picture technologies to collect data on infant behavior. The film camera, he said, records behavior “in such coherent, authentic and measurable detail that . . . the reaction patterns of infant and child become almost as tangible as tissue.” This essay places his faith in the fidelity and tangibility of film, as well as his use of film as evidence, in the context of developmental psychology's professed need for legitimately scientific observational techniques. It also examines his use of these same films as educational material to promote his brand of scientific child rearing. But his analytic techniques – his methods of extracting data from the film frames – are the key to understanding the complex relationship between his theories of development and his chosen research technology.

Type
Research Article
Information
Science in Context , Volume 24 , Issue 3: Cinematography, Seriality, and the Sciences , September 2011 , pp. 417 - 442
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2011

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