Babies could start winning spot-the-ball competitions at the age of six months, according to research released today.
Scott Johnson of New York University reports in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences that babies learn to follow objects with their eyes at between four and six months old. They even work out where the objects are going to end up when they go out of view.
”Our research provides the first conclusive documentation of how and when infants learn about object concepts, and serves as a strong argument against theories that infant knowledge in this area is innate,” he said.
”It had been previously assumed that six-month-old infants could not have had enough time to acquire this type of knowledge, but what’s truly amazing is how rapidly they pick up these concepts.”
Humans are born with brains which must start making connections from the first gasp. The question has always been: how much knowledge is innate and how much acquired at an early age?
Psychologists have focused on how babies make sense of language, how early they can identify music or distinguish between two different languages, how they make sense of motion, and how quickly they recognise faces.
Dr Johnson and his colleagues used an eye-tracking instrument to measure how babies aged between four and six months watched a ball moving across a 32-inch screen. A camera followed eye movements and crosshairs on the screen showed where they were looking as the ball moved.
After two minutes the researchers blocked out part of the screen so that the ball disappeared. Babies as young as four months, who had seen the whole trajectory of the ball, could anticipate where it would re-emerge.
Johnson said one implication of the study was that babies could learn from observation and do ”not necessarily benefit from stimulating toys or exercises”. – Guardian Unlimited Â