7-Month-Old Babies Can 'Read Minds'

Babies as young as 7 months old may be able to take into account the thoughts and beliefs of other people, a younger age than previously demonstrated. 7-month-olds have little experience with conversation, which has long been thought to play a key role in acquiring this capacity. As a result, this study is thought to be significant in building new theories about how this capacity develops. In the study, a Smurf-like character watches a ball roll through a number of scenes. Infants looked longer at those scenes where the character left too soon to see the ball's final position. Because babies are thought to look longer at unexpected situations or events, the researchers interpret this to mean that they were surprised at the unexpected outcome because of processing the character's viewpoint, not just their own. Despite some controversy about study design, if the results are confirmed by future studies, this would indicate that infants are sensitive to social information and to what others see.

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