Babies Understand Thought Process of Others at 10 Months Old, Research Suggests

ScienceDaily (Nov. 1, 2011) — "New research from the University of Missouri indicates that at 10 months, babies start to understand another person's thought process, providing new insights on how humans acquire knowledge and how communication develops."Understanding other people is a key factor in successful communication, and humans start to understand this at a very young age," said Yuyan Luo, associate professor of developmental psychology in the MU College of Arts and Science. "Our study indicates that infants, even before they can verbally communicate, can understand the thought processes of other people -- even if the thoughts diverge from what the infants know as truth, a term psychologists call false belief."

During the study, infants were monitored during different trials of a common psychological test in which an actor indicated preference for certain objects. Researchers timed the infant's gaze, which is an indication of infant knowledge. The infants watched longer when the actor's preferences changed. This led the researchers to believe that infants understood how the actor interacted with the objects."

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