8-week-old babies make sense of the world much earlier than was initially believed

Scientists used to think that babies as young as two months old were unable to organise objects into distinct categories but recent research from neuroscientists at Trinity College Dublin show that babies can understand perception from the very start of life.

Brain scans and artificial intelligence have allowed researchers to access how young infants think and process cognitions in the first few weeks of life. Researchers are now able to understand thought processes in infants before speech and intentional movements are even possible. Visual cognitions are already working hard from birth, and it seems that the infants’ minds are already perceiving how things look and are beginning to categorise objects.

130 babies were part of the research and whilst wearing noise cancelling headphones and viewing lights, they were shown colourful images for 15-20 minutes. An fMRI captured patterns of brain activity as they observed the objects shown to them. Models were used to analyse how the brain categorised the images.

This study can help to inform early-years education providers as we grow in our knowledge of how rapidly the brain develops at a young age. This research can also help to diagnose and understand neurodevelopmental disorders to provide support and therapy at the earliest of stages.

Two-month-old babies are already making sense of the world

Questions

1. Considering what you have read about in this study, what might the researchers suggest about the use of screen time around babies?
2. Why is the finding significant given that the babies were only two months old?
3. How could the findings influence early childhood education?