One major difficulty for developmental studies of affective modulation of the startle reflex is to find stimuli that are developmentally appropriate and ethically acceptable for inducing emotions in infants. A second major difficulty is to reliably measure startle reflex. EMG recording of Orbicularis Oculi activity, in fact, represents a preferred methodology for startle measurement in adults but it is considered intrusive and moderately invasive in infancy. The main goal of a series of studies we are running at the Early Infancy Lab of the University of Ferrara was to examine viable solutions to both these problems: 1) investigating whether facial expressions spontaneously exhibited by the infants might be used as a startle motivational antecedent apt to affectively modulate the reflex; 2) exploring a new and non-invasive instrument for whole-body startle measurement in combination with the use of facial coding. Data contrasting infants between three and five months will be presented.