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Empirical investigation
Empirical investigations of social referencing for scientific purposes is commonly done in a laboratory setting. In order to control the environment and to minimize distracting stimuli. In this setting, an ambiguous situation is produced that requires the child to engage social referencing since it is not able to judge the situation by its self correctly. Following the ambiguous stimulus should cause the child to look to an adult or peer for the appropriate reaction. In order to engage in social referencing, the child needs to have self-awareness of its limits of not being able to judge the situation fully and that someone else, might know the right response.

Ambiguous toy and stranger paradigm
The ambiguous toy paradigm is one of the most commonly used experiment. Due to its low cost and it's wide applicability. The ambiguous toy paradigm can be used with infants after the age of 9 months to make inferences about their development. In order to conduct the experiment, the primary caregiver (most commonly the mother) and the infant will be invited to a room with toys, and the child gets to play with the toys. After the child is used to an unusual situation, a new toy (the ambiguous toy) is presented somewhere in the room. The ambiguous toy usually is an animate toy that can produce sound and move (like a toy robot or a locomotive). The mother then tries to convey (either by looks or by talking to the infant with beforehand trained facial expressions or script), emotions to the child (such as fear, happiness, interest, anger etc.). During this procedure, the child is carefully observed through a mirrored window. When the child has already developed social referencing skills, it will look at her for guidance and act most commonly in accordance with her response either with caution or with curiosity. The stranger paradigm is a different version of the ambiguous toy paradigm. Here instead of a novel toy, a stranger or an animal enters the room and starts to interact with the mother and the infant. The child then looks for guidance to the mother to know if the stranger or animal is trustworthy/ friendly or not.