Have you ever looked down at your baby and wondered if they could read your mind? Well, it turns out they can! According to new research, kids as young as 18 months old can actually guess what other people are thinking.
The study, printed in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society, examined about 91 children, ages 19 months to five years, from China, Fiji, and Ecuador. Researchers tested the group of kids by staging a scenario in which a person came into a room and hid an object. A second person would then walk in and put the object in his pocket without the first person noticing. Afterwards, scientists asked the children if they thought the first person would look for the object.
Most of the older kids answered yes, but in order to get the younger kids' responses, researchers had to study their eye movements. It turns out that even the youngest participants not only realized the item had been taken, but were also constantly glancing back at the original hiding place to see if the person who put it there would notice too! Crazy, right?!
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It's unbelievable to realize how intelligent young kids actually are. I think because of their age, many people assume that babies don't really know what's happening around them. I know I do! But it turns out that not only do they know what's going on, they can also infer how people will react to it. So fascinating … and yet kinda creepy! Ha!
It just goes to show parents should always be on their best behavior around their toddlers–you never know what they might be picking up!
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