We don't always know what happens to our baby, why he cries or what emotion he is feeling. But nevertheless Babies from an early age can recognize the feelings of other babies according to a recent study.
Specifically, babies can recognize the emotions of other babies at the young age of five months. That is when the positive attitudes of other babies catch their attention.
The study, published in the journal Infancy, is entitled "Young Infants Match Facial and Vocal Emotional Expressions of Other Infants" and joins others who had an impact on the same subject, such as the one that found that at three months babies perceive that We adults are sad.
The team of psychologist Ross Flom, from Brigham Young University, in Provo (Utah, United States), tested by placing 40 babies in front of two screens. One of them showed a video of a happy baby smiling while the other showed a second sad baby frowning.
When an audio recording of a happy third baby was played, the small spectators watched the video of the baby with positive facial expressions, even if the sound recordings were not synchronized with the images.
It is therefore more than likely that babies will soon recognize the expressions of another baby, such as those of adults. Empathy? They do not develop it until years later, so it is difficult to explain, since they do not begin to become aware of themselves (and their image) until later ...
In any case, it is surprising that babies perceive the emotions of other babies so small, and the study confirms something we are increasingly confident about: the complexity and richness of the baby's brain already at such a young age.
