Babies are smarter than you think – Can predict people's behaviour, judge preferences!

New Delhi: They may need immense attention and lots of care, but when it comes to gauging human behaviour, they are extremely smart! We're talking about babies.

According to a new study published in the journal Infancy, babies as young as 8-months-old can predict people’s behavior and what they like. They can also make odds on what a person is most likely to do next.

"Even before they can talk, babies are keeping close track of what's going on in front of them and looking for patterns of activity that may suggest preferences," said Lori Markson, associate professor at Washington University in the US.

"Make the same choice three or four times in a row, and babies as young as 8 months come to view that consistent behaviour as a preference," said Markson

The findings demonstrated that infants look for consistent patterns of behaviour and make judgements about people's preferences based on simple probabilities calculated from observed events and actions.

The study may shed light on other aspects of a baby's cognitive development, while also highlighting how infants and young children learn about people's preferences for a certain kind of food, toy or activity. It might also explain why kids always seem to want the toy that someone else is playing with.

"Consistency seems to be an important factor for infants in helping them sort out what is happening in the world around them," Markson said.

"Our findings suggest that, if a person does something different even a single time, it undoes the notion of someone having a clear preference and changes an infant's expectations for that individual's behaviour.

"In other words, if you break the routine, all bets are off in terms of what they expect from you," said Markson.

A series of experiments were conducted to track how infants' "looking times"changed when an actor made an unexpected choice between one of two stuffed-animal toys displayed before the baby on a small puppet stage.

The experiments were conducted on a sample of 60 healthy, full-term infants with an even split of males and females ranging in age from 7 to 9 months and an average age of 8 and a half months.

Seated on a parent's lap, the infants watched as a young woman reached out and grabbed one of two stuffed animals on the stage, either a white-and-brown dog or a yellow duck with orange beak and a purple bonnet.

After each four-trial familiarisation phase, the researcher observed the babies' reactions as the women reappeared on the stage and made a fifth selection, either going back to the previously targeted duck or making a new selection of the dog.

Findings confirmed that the babies spent about 50 percent more time looking at selections that represented a break from consistent patterns made in the familiarisation trials.

(With PTI inputs)