WEBVTT - The Amazing Minds of Infants 0:00:03.800 --> 0:00:06.680 Welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind from how Stuff 0:00:06.680 --> 0:00:13.600 Works dot com. Hey, you're welcome to stuff to blow 0:00:13.680 --> 0:00:15.840 your mind. My name is Robert Lamb and I'm Julie. 0:00:16.560 --> 0:00:19.960 We were just looking at an Onion article, weren't we were? Yeah. 0:00:19.960 --> 0:00:27.360 It was from classic from seven. Uh, babies are stupid, Yeah, 0:00:27.760 --> 0:00:30.120 which which was a phenomenally funny piece of the time 0:00:30.200 --> 0:00:33.040 because you know, you read all this stuff about, oh, 0:00:33.120 --> 0:00:35.159 babies are really you know, there's a lot going on 0:00:35.200 --> 0:00:36.640 with the with the mind of an infant, and this 0:00:36.880 --> 0:00:38.479 sort of turned that on its head by saying, you know, 0:00:38.680 --> 0:00:42.080 actually babies are really stupid, because it's easy to to 0:00:42.159 --> 0:00:44.680 sort of think think that on the surface because they 0:00:44.720 --> 0:00:49.319 are they are helpless. Uh, they don't really don't really 0:00:49.400 --> 0:00:52.320 understand how things work. They can't talk. They can't talk. 0:00:52.479 --> 0:00:57.440 They're just crapping themselves like crazy, drooling and and and 0:00:57.520 --> 0:01:00.280 just having intense emotional reactions to things, be at a 0:01:00.280 --> 0:01:05.160 peekaboo game, Uh, some shiny object or um, uh, you know, 0:01:05.360 --> 0:01:09.280 just or something even mildly unpleasant just set them off. 0:01:10.160 --> 0:01:14.640 But turns out that they are learning machines. Yes, the 0:01:14.760 --> 0:01:18.319 larval human is pretty amazing. They Yeah, they're absolutely amazing 0:01:18.480 --> 0:01:21.080 in the same way that like a larval insight like it. 0:01:21.080 --> 0:01:22.959 It doesn't look like much, but its whole thing is 0:01:23.080 --> 0:01:26.000 eat and grow, eat and grow. Similar thing with the 0:01:26.120 --> 0:01:29.039 with the larval human. It's it's it's whole mission is 0:01:29.080 --> 0:01:31.400 to learn and grow, learn and grow and eat and 0:01:31.440 --> 0:01:34.960 poop a lot. But learn, grow and think that. I think, yeah, 0:01:35.360 --> 0:01:38.280 and this is very different for our species. Um. There 0:01:38.280 --> 0:01:41.319 are some really good uh articles out there about this 0:01:41.440 --> 0:01:44.679 extended childhood that we have, Like why in the world 0:01:44.720 --> 0:01:49.000 does it take it so long to acquire language to 0:01:49.160 --> 0:01:52.880 grow up to fend for ourselves? Yeah, because there are 0:01:52.920 --> 0:01:56.040 their prey and most prey animals out there, such as 0:01:56.120 --> 0:02:00.080 you know, deer, antelope, what have you. They're born and 0:02:00.080 --> 0:02:02.320 they have to be on their feet and uh and 0:02:02.320 --> 0:02:05.320 and running in pretty short order in order to survive. 0:02:05.400 --> 0:02:10.160 There's no sticking around the nest necessarily or you know, 0:02:10.200 --> 0:02:14.519 they just they have to turn into the adults very fast. Um. Likewise, 0:02:14.720 --> 0:02:18.400 the kitten that my wife found is currently in a 0:02:18.440 --> 0:02:24.400 box in our house. Bean, but like, uh, like pretty 0:02:24.440 --> 0:02:26.280 pretty quickly, like we first got him. You know, he's 0:02:26.320 --> 0:02:29.239 all you know, awkward and falling down and all and 0:02:29.240 --> 0:02:32.000 and but and he's still awkward and falling down, but 0:02:32.080 --> 0:02:35.400 you can already see him doing the things that cats 0:02:35.440 --> 0:02:38.000 have to do. He's already running through the exercises of 0:02:38.080 --> 0:02:41.280 hunting and pouncing and and you know, it's like all 0:02:41.320 --> 0:02:43.840 the programming is there. And as soon as his body 0:02:43.880 --> 0:02:47.160 catches up in just you know, a matter of you know, 0:02:47.480 --> 0:02:50.240 months or weeks, he's gonna be good to go. He'll 0:02:50.240 --> 0:02:51.919 be up and running. He doesn't need to be put 0:02:51.919 --> 0:02:54.519 in a sling for ten months, right and carry it 0:02:54.520 --> 0:02:57.280 all right. He also doesn't need to learn all that much, right, 0:02:57.400 --> 0:02:59.560 So compared to other species, we humans, we have a 0:02:59.639 --> 0:03:03.200 lunch a much longer period of immaturity, and psychologist Alice 0:03:03.320 --> 0:03:06.120 and Gothnik actually says that there's a reason for that, 0:03:06.120 --> 0:03:10.239 that long periods of immaturity are correlated to higher degree 0:03:10.240 --> 0:03:13.920 of flexibility, intelligence, and learning. So, in other words, it's 0:03:13.960 --> 0:03:17.000 neo cortex that we got, you know, thousands of thousands 0:03:17.040 --> 0:03:18.840 of years ago that that that helps us so much 0:03:18.880 --> 0:03:22.280 in our communication. Really takes a lot of effort, a 0:03:22.280 --> 0:03:24.880 lot of resources to sort of feed that before we 0:03:24.919 --> 0:03:29.440 can become uh, totally cognizance in a way that we 0:03:29.480 --> 0:03:31.840 think of ourselves as adults. Right, And we see the 0:03:31.840 --> 0:03:35.960 scenario in the classic crow versus chicken um argument, right, 0:03:36.240 --> 0:03:39.440 because the chicken is is pretty stupid. There's not a 0:03:39.480 --> 0:03:41.520 lot going on with the chicken, and they're up and 0:03:41.560 --> 0:03:44.120 running pretty soon. They're up and running pretty soon, pretty fast. 0:03:44.800 --> 0:03:46.720 You know, chick doesn't say a chicken very long. Pretty 0:03:46.760 --> 0:03:49.640 soon it's a stupid chicken. Not so the crow. The 0:03:49.680 --> 0:03:52.480 crow is pretty brilliant. I mean, the crow is a mean. 0:03:52.520 --> 0:03:55.960 There have been all these fabulous studies about crow intelligence. 0:03:55.960 --> 0:03:57.640 We could, we could and probably should do a whole 0:03:57.680 --> 0:04:00.520 episode on crowl intelligence because their tool user they can 0:04:00.520 --> 0:04:03.040 be trained to put coins, to collect coins and put 0:04:03.040 --> 0:04:08.280 them into machines. Um. They're they're, they're they're just incredible, 0:04:09.360 --> 0:04:14.120 incredible birds. But they also have a longer period of development. Well, 0:04:14.160 --> 0:04:16.599 and as Alison up Nick says, one one of those 0:04:16.640 --> 0:04:18.920 creatures ends up on the cover of Science and one 0:04:19.160 --> 0:04:22.039 ends up in your soup pot. So there's there's a 0:04:22.080 --> 0:04:25.520 reason for that. Right. Again, crows do have a longer 0:04:25.560 --> 0:04:28.880 period of immaturity. Uh. But one of the things that 0:04:28.920 --> 0:04:31.799 I think is really interesting is again this idea of 0:04:32.279 --> 0:04:36.080 building up the neo cortex is communication centers in the 0:04:36.120 --> 0:04:40.280 brain and um, we have touched on this a bit 0:04:40.400 --> 0:04:44.080 in terms of babies, in their ability to mimic even 0:04:44.279 --> 0:04:48.840 um they're crying. We talked about this German accent, yeah, 0:04:48.880 --> 0:04:52.520 German accent or a French accent days after they're born, 0:04:52.960 --> 0:04:57.000 such as their ability to to really absorb information about 0:04:57.160 --> 0:05:01.160 how language works. And I thought that it was really 0:05:01.200 --> 0:05:05.160 interesting to start this talk off with UM with language 0:05:05.320 --> 0:05:08.719 sort of like the crux of our being, and I 0:05:08.800 --> 0:05:11.520 wanted I've heard it described as the the operating system 0:05:11.600 --> 0:05:13.719 for the human brain. Yeah, I mean, we're the We're 0:05:13.720 --> 0:05:16.520 the hardware that you need windows on their right to 0:05:16.600 --> 0:05:20.039 run it. Well, languages are windows. Yeah. Elizabeth Balky, she's 0:05:20.040 --> 0:05:22.640 a cognitive psychologist. She has actually said like, this is 0:05:22.680 --> 0:05:25.240 the reason why why we can do what we can do. 0:05:25.600 --> 0:05:31.320 We have this competentive, comgnitorial approach to life because of language. 0:05:31.400 --> 0:05:35.080 We can um, you know, enter into these scenarios where 0:05:35.200 --> 0:05:38.279 let's say you're you're year old and you're trying to 0:05:38.320 --> 0:05:42.159 figure out three dimensional areas. Um. But then you begin 0:05:42.240 --> 0:05:45.000 to name things, and then you start to be able 0:05:45.040 --> 0:05:49.240 to put this again, languages at the bedrock of this ability. 0:05:49.560 --> 0:05:52.240 You begin to put these concepts with words, and you're 0:05:52.279 --> 0:05:55.920 just lapping on more and more knowledge. Without this ability, 0:05:55.920 --> 0:05:59.720 this language, then, which makes us uniquely human in terms 0:05:59.720 --> 0:06:03.800 of its complexity, we wouldn't be the people we are today, 0:06:03.839 --> 0:06:06.680 even just sitting here talking about this. Right, Like you 0:06:06.720 --> 0:06:09.800 think of like what words do for us? Um, Like 0:06:10.040 --> 0:06:14.200 you think of a word like genocide, one word that 0:06:14.200 --> 0:06:18.160 that summons an intense amount of information about something that's 0:06:18.240 --> 0:06:21.080 very complicated. Um Like, if I'm just if I don't 0:06:21.120 --> 0:06:24.800 have a word for genocide, then they're trying to think 0:06:24.839 --> 0:06:28.640 about it, like would occupy the entire mind, you know, 0:06:28.720 --> 0:06:30.760 and you still wouldn't be able to grasp it. You 0:06:30.760 --> 0:06:32.800 can sort of wrap it up in that term. And 0:06:32.839 --> 0:06:36.120 then something like ballet is pretty complicated as well, but 0:06:36.160 --> 0:06:38.159 I can wrap it up under the term ballet, and 0:06:38.200 --> 0:06:41.599 then I can simultaneously hold both the word ballet and 0:06:41.600 --> 0:06:46.279 genocide in my mind and collide those ideas, which you 0:06:46.279 --> 0:06:48.840 can't do unless you have words for them. Right, And 0:06:48.920 --> 0:06:51.039 this is an amazing thing that we can do. And 0:06:51.080 --> 0:06:54.640 it turns out that, um, that the seeds for that 0:06:54.760 --> 0:06:57.360 are present at birth. But before I want to talk 0:06:57.400 --> 0:06:59.080 a little bit more about language, I did want to 0:06:59.080 --> 0:07:02.520 mention Sean pj At this one in the century. He 0:07:02.560 --> 0:07:05.880 wrote a book called Origins of Intelligence and Children, which 0:07:05.920 --> 0:07:08.480 in and of itself is sort of like a revelation, 0:07:08.560 --> 0:07:11.520 because what intelligence and children at that time period. Yeah, 0:07:11.560 --> 0:07:14.120 just the idea that they're just bumbling buffoons that still 0:07:14.160 --> 0:07:17.000 have everything in the world to learn and then under 0:07:17.000 --> 0:07:19.680 certain definitions, aren't even real people yet, right They're not 0:07:19.800 --> 0:07:23.080 exactly they're not they don't quite have a personhood right yet. Um, 0:07:23.160 --> 0:07:25.760 they haven't acquired enough information. So that's what they used 0:07:25.760 --> 0:07:29.320 to think of as as children. Just who are you know, 0:07:29.720 --> 0:07:33.600 soon to be adults that haven't acquired enough information? Um. 0:07:33.640 --> 0:07:36.360 But what he found is that qualitative thinking changes. In 0:07:36.400 --> 0:07:39.000 other words, different kinds of learning comes online at different 0:07:39.000 --> 0:07:41.480 points in development, and so you kind of think of 0:07:41.520 --> 0:07:44.200 it as like we're preloaded with these modules in our brain, 0:07:44.240 --> 0:07:46.480 but they don't fully develop until they get the cues 0:07:46.560 --> 0:07:49.120 that they need. So I did want to flip over 0:07:49.320 --> 0:07:53.680 really quickly and talk about Patricia Cool. She has a 0:07:53.800 --> 0:07:57.600 great talk called The Linguistic Genius of Babies, and she 0:07:57.720 --> 0:08:02.200 says that from zero to six months, babies are quote 0:08:02.560 --> 0:08:06.280 citizens of the world, and they can distinguish between pronunciations 0:08:06.440 --> 0:08:09.640 in every language, something that no adult brain can do, 0:08:10.280 --> 0:08:13.360 because we eventually get pretty specialized in our language right 0:08:13.360 --> 0:08:16.280 in our abilities. And she says that between eight and 0:08:16.360 --> 0:08:20.560 ten months, babies exhibits statistical computation skills and their ability 0:08:20.600 --> 0:08:23.120 to pick up and analyze language. So in other words, 0:08:23.160 --> 0:08:26.520 they can take into account the relative frequency of the 0:08:26.560 --> 0:08:31.560 sounds they hear and the transitional probabilities between syllables, and 0:08:31.640 --> 0:08:34.760 this is what she says is statistical learning. So this 0:08:34.800 --> 0:08:37.360 is all happening in their minds as we adults throw 0:08:37.400 --> 0:08:41.559 a bunch of baby talk at them. Parentees, it's actually 0:08:41.720 --> 0:08:46.040 called the parentees, although also called mothery'se uh. But it's 0:08:46.040 --> 0:08:50.599 actually really important because there's that that sort of this 0:08:50.679 --> 0:08:53.760 sort of changes in tone are important for the child 0:08:53.800 --> 0:08:58.280 to begin to understand these different melodies of language. But 0:08:58.400 --> 0:09:01.440 that zero to six months they is really fascinating to 0:09:01.480 --> 0:09:04.199 me because if I hear Mandarin, I'm not going to 0:09:04.280 --> 0:09:07.920 be able to distinguish between certain syllables because it is 0:09:07.920 --> 0:09:11.560 not native to our standing. Yes, it's just an orange 0:09:11.559 --> 0:09:14.600 to me, it's not a language barely making a sound, 0:09:14.800 --> 0:09:18.280 but yeah, and why or are people always going I 0:09:18.360 --> 0:09:21.880 was gonna make a really badgeck, but throwing ranges at 0:09:21.880 --> 0:09:27.000 each other and trying to communicate instrument. I'm sorry, no, 0:09:27.040 --> 0:09:30.960 not the manteline nice but no, I mean this is fascinating, 0:09:31.000 --> 0:09:33.440 like how my ear has shut that out, that ability. 0:09:33.600 --> 0:09:37.080 But these year to six month old kids, these infants 0:09:37.160 --> 0:09:41.079 can actually just distinguish between these sounds, and she a. 0:09:41.160 --> 0:09:45.439 Patricia Kool also says that kids by age seven begin 0:09:45.520 --> 0:09:48.120 to fall off of linguistic map. What she means to 0:09:48.160 --> 0:09:53.640 say is that language acquisition is absolutely open and optimal 0:09:53.880 --> 0:09:57.240 before age seven. So and of course, you know, most 0:09:57.240 --> 0:10:01.160 people our age didn't begin language lessons until later on 0:10:01.200 --> 0:10:03.160 in their lives, which is sort of the wrong thing 0:10:03.200 --> 0:10:06.560 to do, um. But that because by the time year seven, 0:10:06.640 --> 0:10:09.520 your brain changes is and you're you're pruning a lot 0:10:09.559 --> 0:10:12.400 of the neural connections that you don't necessarily need. So 0:10:12.440 --> 0:10:15.120 we kind of lose that ability, um to some extent. 0:10:15.600 --> 0:10:17.480 But one of the things that she points out is 0:10:17.559 --> 0:10:21.160 that this one to one interaction is really important. You 0:10:21.240 --> 0:10:24.840 have to see someone else's eyes in order to acquire language. 0:10:25.400 --> 0:10:27.560 And we'll talk about the eyes and the importance about 0:10:27.600 --> 0:10:29.880 that a little bit. So we we did a whole 0:10:29.880 --> 0:10:32.880 episode I think more than one on math. And in 0:10:32.960 --> 0:10:37.599 that we mentioned that the babies are capable of algorithmic 0:10:37.679 --> 0:10:39.880 thinking even in early age. They don't have they don't 0:10:39.880 --> 0:10:42.640 have numbers. They don't have this and this gets into 0:10:42.640 --> 0:10:44.839 the whole question of his again his math a human 0:10:44.920 --> 0:10:47.960 invention or a human discovery or something else. But the 0:10:48.000 --> 0:10:51.480 idea here is that even though babies can't rattle off 0:10:51.480 --> 0:10:55.840 one through ten, they have numbers. Since they can, they 0:10:55.840 --> 0:10:59.240 can think algorithmically about the world around them, which is 0:11:00.000 --> 0:11:01.520 which if you stop and think about that, I mean, 0:11:01.520 --> 0:11:07.360 it's pretty phenomenal. Versus are sort of accepted mainstream viewing 0:11:07.440 --> 0:11:10.160 of Oh, the child must be taught language, it must 0:11:10.200 --> 0:11:13.800 be taught math, but it already has math. Yeah, And 0:11:13.840 --> 0:11:17.360 this is why artificial intelligence is interested in babies because 0:11:17.960 --> 0:11:21.400 in this way, as Elizabeth spoke, he says, they are root. 0:11:22.080 --> 0:11:26.200 UM it's where human cognition and organization of the human 0:11:26.240 --> 0:11:28.080 mind begins. And of course we want to try to 0:11:28.120 --> 0:11:31.760 do this with computers as best that we can. UM. 0:11:31.800 --> 0:11:35.480 I wanted to mention the world's first stored program electronic 0:11:35.520 --> 0:11:39.120 digital computer. UH. This was in and it was called 0:11:39.160 --> 0:11:43.400 the Small Scale Experimental Machine. It was also nicknamed Baby 0:11:44.440 --> 0:11:46.640 and one of the programs that ran on it was 0:11:46.720 --> 0:11:49.640 designed by Alan Turning. And we've talked about Alan Turning 0:11:49.679 --> 0:11:52.400 before in terms of AI. He's a pioneer UM in 0:11:52.520 --> 0:11:57.800 artificial intelligence and very I know, I was just thinking 0:11:57.840 --> 0:12:00.800 about that yesterday. I was when I was revisiting some material. Yeah, 0:12:00.880 --> 0:12:03.440 there's a great Radio Lab episode. I think it's shorty 0:12:03.600 --> 0:12:05.160 or maybe it was a long I don't know, but 0:12:05.200 --> 0:12:09.079 there was a reason Radio episode about him. That's really heartbreaking. Yeah, 0:12:09.120 --> 0:12:11.600 he is a is an individual, is very very interesting 0:12:11.640 --> 0:12:16.480 and UM certainly brilliant. He was. But Alison Gothnick talks 0:12:16.520 --> 0:12:19.480 about Touring. She says that the classic Turing palm is 0:12:19.520 --> 0:12:22.040 could you get a computer to be so sophisticated that 0:12:22.080 --> 0:12:24.199 you couldn't tell the difference between the computer and a person. 0:12:25.160 --> 0:12:27.080 But then Touring said that there was an even more 0:12:27.160 --> 0:12:31.880 profound question, which was could you get a computer give 0:12:31.920 --> 0:12:34.360 it the kind of data that every human being gets 0:12:34.400 --> 0:12:36.200 as a child, and have it learned the kinds of 0:12:36.240 --> 0:12:39.320 things things that a child can learn. Again, this is 0:12:39.360 --> 0:12:43.320 the root uh brain that we're talking about, and certainly 0:12:43.360 --> 0:12:45.920 machine learning is a is a huge part of our 0:12:46.080 --> 0:12:50.240 ongoing development of AI. You know, like in creating machines 0:12:50.280 --> 0:12:52.640 that work alongside humans. We want to do that so 0:12:52.679 --> 0:12:55.199 that they can they can learn from their environment. So 0:12:55.320 --> 0:12:57.920 machine learning is is key. And if you want to learn, 0:12:58.480 --> 0:13:02.040 you learn to discover how something earns. The infant is 0:13:02.080 --> 0:13:04.559 the place to look, right, And she says because they 0:13:04.600 --> 0:13:08.280 have inductive learning techniques as well, just like computers. And 0:13:08.360 --> 0:13:10.360 she even brings up the point that about fifteen years 0:13:10.360 --> 0:13:16.400 ago researchers created Baiesian causal graphical models. Baisian is basically 0:13:16.440 --> 0:13:20.720 like this inductive learning, right um. And these models map 0:13:20.760 --> 0:13:24.640 out the way the world works for computers and also 0:13:24.679 --> 0:13:27.920 mapped out patterns of probability. And this was really an 0:13:27.960 --> 0:13:33.680 advance in computational um formal computation, I should say. In 0:13:33.720 --> 0:13:37.400 about that same time, uh, that these computational systems were 0:13:37.400 --> 0:13:41.040 coming online, cognitive psychologists began to form the idea that 0:13:41.080 --> 0:13:44.280 babies are doing very much the same thing. So you 0:13:44.360 --> 0:13:46.920 brought up this number sense that that kids have. And 0:13:46.920 --> 0:13:50.000 what we're talking about here is Baiesian reasoning. That they 0:13:50.000 --> 0:13:53.080 can take a random sample and understand the relationship between 0:13:53.160 --> 0:13:56.840 that sample and the population is drawn from right, so 0:13:56.880 --> 0:14:00.000 they can tell they can tell the difference between um, 0:14:00.320 --> 0:14:03.560 three red balls and nine red balls. Yeah, not so much. 0:14:03.600 --> 0:14:06.440 Maybe three red balls and four red balls. You know, 0:14:06.480 --> 0:14:10.600 it becomes an algorithmic distinction there. But but yeah, they've 0:14:10.600 --> 0:14:13.120 they've already got that hard wired in. Yeah. I mean 0:14:13.120 --> 0:14:15.360 they are kind of like born accountants. Because if you 0:14:15.400 --> 0:14:19.000 give a baby a picture an array of dots, and 0:14:19.040 --> 0:14:21.520 there are four dots, and you have another array of 0:14:21.640 --> 0:14:25.840 twelve dots, and you play sounds that four sounds, they 0:14:25.880 --> 0:14:28.120 will begin to look at the four dots. If you 0:14:28.200 --> 0:14:32.920 play twelve sounds, they look at the array of twelve dots. 0:14:33.320 --> 0:14:35.640 And it doesn't matter how much time or the length 0:14:35.720 --> 0:14:37.800 of the sound, as long as there are four of them, right, 0:14:37.920 --> 0:14:39.800 or twelve of them, they will still do this. They 0:14:39.840 --> 0:14:42.880 still have this understanding of more and less. As you say, so, 0:14:42.960 --> 0:14:45.080 babies come preloaded with a little bit of math, and 0:14:45.120 --> 0:14:47.000 they also come preloaded with a little bit of physics, 0:14:47.120 --> 0:14:49.840 which is pretty crazy because it's it's again, it's easy 0:14:49.920 --> 0:14:51.400 to think of the babies like the baby has no 0:14:51.480 --> 0:14:54.840 idea how the world works. You know, it's this everything 0:14:54.920 --> 0:14:57.960 is magical to this creature. Right. Uh, you know, he 0:14:58.200 --> 0:15:00.760 thinks I disappear when I do my uh my my 0:15:00.800 --> 0:15:05.200 peekaboot hands. But that's not the case, because ultimately this 0:15:05.320 --> 0:15:09.520 child is born into a world again of of a 0:15:09.640 --> 0:15:13.800 three D world, uh actually forty three spatial dimensions in 0:15:13.840 --> 0:15:17.160 one of time. It's full of fixed and movable objects 0:15:17.280 --> 0:15:20.520 they have to navigate, and so they have the the 0:15:20.640 --> 0:15:23.120 gear in their head already to deal with this kind 0:15:23.120 --> 0:15:26.040 of world. And so they intrinsically know things such as 0:15:26.840 --> 0:15:28.280 and this was kind of heartbreaking in a way, the 0:15:28.320 --> 0:15:32.280 teleportation is impossible. That they know that an object cannot 0:15:32.320 --> 0:15:36.200 disappear from put point A in appearing point B without 0:15:36.320 --> 0:15:40.920 physically traversing the distance between. Yeah, they know about object permanence. 0:15:40.920 --> 0:15:43.200 They get that, and they get that that one object 0:15:43.280 --> 0:15:46.200 can only occupy that time and space at that at 0:15:46.240 --> 0:15:49.480 that moment. Uh. Spelky says that babies as early as 0:15:49.560 --> 0:15:52.600 two months can begin to understand this. And what they 0:15:52.640 --> 0:15:55.200 did is they took two cups. In one cup they 0:15:55.200 --> 0:15:58.880 put one cracker, and but they did these these hand 0:15:58.920 --> 0:16:01.680 motions like they were innuit to put put a cracker 0:16:01.720 --> 0:16:05.200 in it. And then in another cup they put two crackers. 0:16:05.200 --> 0:16:08.080 But they didn't do multiple hand motions. And what they 0:16:08.120 --> 0:16:10.320 found is that over and over again, the baby kept 0:16:10.320 --> 0:16:12.920 reaching for the one with more crackers in it, even 0:16:12.960 --> 0:16:16.800 though they had sort of done this sleight of hand. Hey, look, 0:16:16.880 --> 0:16:19.400 doesn't it look like I'm putting a ton more crackers 0:16:19.440 --> 0:16:23.600 in here. So she's saying like that that ability is present, 0:16:24.600 --> 0:16:27.440 you know, two months, which is amazing. So you need 0:16:27.520 --> 0:16:29.680 to bring a baby with you to the the con 0:16:29.760 --> 0:16:33.080 man with the cup game, Bring a baby, he'll see 0:16:33.160 --> 0:16:35.600 right there, taken for always work, all right, and then 0:16:35.640 --> 0:16:37.440 after that, like the baby, I don't know it turns 0:16:37.480 --> 0:16:39.560 one or something, forget it now. I don't know what 0:16:39.640 --> 0:16:41.720 time limit that has. Actually, I think that we just 0:16:41.720 --> 0:16:44.520 build on that. And that's sort of her point. And 0:16:44.640 --> 0:16:47.120 she also says that there are born Euclideans and they 0:16:47.200 --> 0:16:50.960 use geometric clues to navigate through rooms. For instance, they're 0:16:51.000 --> 0:16:53.360 more likely to use the lengths of walls in the 0:16:53.440 --> 0:16:56.160 room to remember where a toy is hidden. And even 0:16:56.200 --> 0:16:58.920 when they get older and they're three or four years old, um, 0:16:59.160 --> 0:17:02.080 and they can name like, oh, that's a red wall, 0:17:02.600 --> 0:17:07.080 they still will use that the actual um geometric clues 0:17:07.160 --> 0:17:09.560 the length of the wall, rather than naming the color 0:17:09.840 --> 0:17:13.280 as a way to navigate. All right. Now here's another question. 0:17:13.320 --> 0:17:16.760 I mean we were with babies. Um, we with older children, 0:17:16.800 --> 0:17:18.880 we're you know, we're often it's often easy to sort 0:17:18.880 --> 0:17:22.119 of judge them. Is sort of like non moral, self 0:17:22.119 --> 0:17:26.560 centered monsters. Uh, you know, so it doesn't. Yeah, so 0:17:26.640 --> 0:17:28.280 you look at a baby and you're like, that baby 0:17:28.280 --> 0:17:30.800 doesn't have morals. It doesn't know right from wrong, It 0:17:30.840 --> 0:17:34.440 doesn't know what a you know, a criminal is. But 0:17:35.320 --> 0:17:38.680 the research has actually shown different. Yeah, there's an article 0:17:38.760 --> 0:17:42.320 from I O nine. Uh, it's babies are already superior 0:17:42.400 --> 0:17:44.879 to us, to the rest of us by fifteen months. 0:17:44.880 --> 0:17:47.720 The title of the article and what they were saying 0:17:47.840 --> 0:17:50.040 is that until recently, it was thought that that children 0:17:50.080 --> 0:17:54.040 didn't understand altruism until at least two years of age, 0:17:54.280 --> 0:17:56.560 and that they didn't have a sense of fairness until 0:17:56.600 --> 0:17:59.000 they were six or seven. But it turns out they 0:17:59.040 --> 0:18:01.440 do have a sense of fair and us and altruism. 0:18:01.680 --> 0:18:06.720 University of Wisconsin researcher Jessica Somerville had forty seven fifteen 0:18:06.840 --> 0:18:09.320 month old children sit on their parents laps while they 0:18:09.320 --> 0:18:13.040 were shown to videos. The first video had three characters, 0:18:13.160 --> 0:18:15.679 one of whom had a bowl of crackers. See the 0:18:15.680 --> 0:18:20.239 food thing is really important to these kids. That's right there. 0:18:20.760 --> 0:18:24.280 This um laser focused on the food. The person shared 0:18:24.359 --> 0:18:27.400 the crackers with the other two once in equal portions, 0:18:27.640 --> 0:18:31.080 and then with one person getting more crackers than the 0:18:31.119 --> 0:18:33.880 other people. So they see this the sense of finding 0:18:34.160 --> 0:18:37.720 unfairness unfolding. The second video was exactly the same thing, 0:18:37.800 --> 0:18:41.600 only this time around with milk substituted for crackers. So 0:18:41.640 --> 0:18:46.040 the researchers were on the lookout for something called violation expectancy, 0:18:46.240 --> 0:18:49.240 and this basically means the baby's paying more attention when 0:18:49.240 --> 0:18:52.600 they're surprised, and this is important to Spelky. Elizabeth spell 0:18:52.640 --> 0:18:56.439 Ky really keyed into this gaze um that infants have, 0:18:56.680 --> 0:18:59.200 and it's really important because we talked about the eyes 0:18:59.240 --> 0:19:02.840 in learning, and there are ways that you can actually 0:19:02.880 --> 0:19:06.600 determine what a baby is thinking or reacting to with 0:19:06.600 --> 0:19:11.600 with the their facial gestures. So if anybody's like, well, 0:19:11.600 --> 0:19:13.159 how in the world, and I know this is happening, 0:19:13.240 --> 0:19:16.040 is because they they're basically bidding and videoing these kids 0:19:16.119 --> 0:19:19.960 and um tagging these looks of surprises. So anyway, the 0:19:20.000 --> 0:19:22.760 baby's attention tended to park up really a lot when 0:19:22.760 --> 0:19:25.919 the milk and crackers were unevenly shared. Then when they 0:19:25.960 --> 0:19:29.520 were distributed equally because and that plays into algorithmic thinking. 0:19:29.520 --> 0:19:32.240 They can definitely tell if someone's being slided by a 0:19:32.640 --> 0:19:36.080 significant margin. Yes, because they expected it to be equal. 0:19:36.280 --> 0:19:38.760 That was their expectation. Again, we talked about our brains. 0:19:39.880 --> 0:19:42.000 They know what housing says, they we have have these 0:19:42.119 --> 0:19:46.040 this pattern recognition hard baked into our brains. Um. So 0:19:46.119 --> 0:19:48.399 another experiment was then done with the babies. They were 0:19:48.440 --> 0:19:51.800 offered two toys. One was really fancy, one wasn't. And 0:19:52.000 --> 0:19:55.199 so they then selected the toy that they preferred, and 0:19:55.240 --> 0:19:58.439 then an unseen experiment or came into the room and 0:19:58.520 --> 0:20:02.600 asked to share the boy. Okay, only one third of 0:20:02.640 --> 0:20:06.240 the kids did. But here is the kicker. Of the 0:20:06.240 --> 0:20:09.280 babies who shared their preferred toy also paid more attention 0:20:09.320 --> 0:20:13.920 to the unequal sharing video. Okay. So in other words, 0:20:13.920 --> 0:20:16.040 the vast majority of babies who gave up the toy 0:20:16.080 --> 0:20:19.480 they liked an act of altruism were the ones who 0:20:19.600 --> 0:20:23.080 were surprised by the act of unfairness. This is pointing 0:20:23.160 --> 0:20:26.639 to like clear perception of as you say, have these 0:20:26.760 --> 0:20:32.159 or unfairness injustices or injustices of the world. Wow and uh, 0:20:32.240 --> 0:20:35.080 And I've also seen some experiments that involved like colored blocks, 0:20:35.080 --> 0:20:39.439 where colored blocks are are being villainous to one another, 0:20:39.800 --> 0:20:43.480 or even puppets, which which needately brought to mind Punch 0:20:43.520 --> 0:20:46.760 and Judy. But but I'm trying to think of anybody's 0:20:46.800 --> 0:20:49.600 really moral and Punch and Judy, I mean, because Punch 0:20:49.640 --> 0:20:51.879 is awful and then he runs a foul of the 0:20:51.920 --> 0:20:54.720 police who was kind of awful, and then the devil 0:20:54.840 --> 0:20:57.560 and death I guess death. Yeah, Punch and Judy is 0:20:57.600 --> 0:21:01.920 actually really um it's kind of heavy stuff for a kid. Yeah, 0:21:02.160 --> 0:21:06.040 it's dark stuff. But anyway, I always think about it 0:21:06.280 --> 0:21:08.200 for the Center of Puppet Roots here in Atlanta, because 0:21:08.240 --> 0:21:10.240 they have a museum and they've got the Punch and 0:21:10.320 --> 0:21:12.520 Judy and they always the scare the heck out of 0:21:12.520 --> 0:21:15.119 me for some reason. We my my wife and I 0:21:15.160 --> 0:21:16.920 went there once when they had just for I think 0:21:16.960 --> 0:21:19.640 two nights they had a Punch and Judy Modern Punch 0:21:19.640 --> 0:21:22.800 and Judy at come in that market themselves as the 0:21:22.800 --> 0:21:24.720 world's best Punch and Judy show. If you do a 0:21:24.720 --> 0:21:27.840 search for that online you'll find them. And uh and 0:21:27.960 --> 0:21:30.520 they there. These are like a young couple. I don't 0:21:30.520 --> 0:21:32.040 know they're a couple, but a young man and a 0:21:32.160 --> 0:21:36.080 woman who like, learned Punch and Judy, which has a 0:21:36.080 --> 0:21:37.960 different name in French, but I can't remember. Like each 0:21:37.960 --> 0:21:40.080 country at European country has Punch and Judy, but they 0:21:40.160 --> 0:21:42.840 have different names. But they learned that their puppetry craft 0:21:42.840 --> 0:21:45.880 on the streets of Paris, like sleeping on the streets 0:21:46.000 --> 0:21:48.800 in there in the puppet theater turned on its side, 0:21:49.359 --> 0:21:52.399 and so they were just masters of the old school 0:21:52.440 --> 0:21:54.159 Punch and Judy show. And they put it on and 0:21:54.200 --> 0:21:57.399 it was phenomenal. It was just hilarious and and they 0:21:57.520 --> 0:22:02.040