Our current course of experiments is to determine the optimum methodology for persuading a human infant to independently manipulate an unattached feeding device during its own feedings. A methodology will be considered successful if the food delivery operator retains the ability to accomplish simple tasks other than feeding during the infant’s feeding period.
Primary Methodology: Physically placing the infant’s hands on the feeding device as food delivery begins
- Day One:
- Per chosen methodology, infant’s hands were physically placed on the feeding device as it began feeding.
- Initial observations:
- subject’s use of feeding device as a surprisingly effective flailing weapon (operator was able to recover device before sustaining severe injuries)
- subject demonstrates complete ignorance of physics, initially attempting to produce sufficient vacuum to raise contents from bottom of feeding device rather than inverting it to allow gravity to do its work (operator was able to recover device before its sides collapsed to the point that irreparable damage was sustained)
- subject demonstrates six previously unobserved methods for projecting food substances across the testing area (At least two of these may have violated known laws of physics. This represents a potentially promising opportunity for future research.)
- Results:
- Duration of feeding period, compared to normal: Five times as long
- Time subject engaged in activities other than participating in experiment: 50%
- Time subject retained control of feeding device during feeding period: 50%
- Time subject utilized control to do other things than feed with feeding device: 20%
- Time subject utilized control to attempt feeding with feeding device: 30%
- Time subject successfully fed from feeding device while manipulating it independently: 15%
- Frustration quotients: subject-6/10; operator-8/10; cleaning crew-10/10
- Conclusions:
- Subject became more engaged with process as experiment progressed, indicating some level of success despite operator’s inability to accomplish simple tasks during experiment, suggesting that continued evaluation of this methodology is warranted to determine it’s equilibrium effectiveness.
- Human infants are incredibly uncooperative test subjects; Suggest future research be conducted with subjects more amenable to persuasion and soothing, like tasmanian devils or honey-badgers…
