Don't Trick Your Infant Nieces and Nephews, Auntie!
by Veronica Spettmann
Your baby nieces and nephews will likely mimic you, Auntie, but won’t
for long if you trick them, a new Canadian study shows. Researchers at
Concordia University in Montreal found that when adults trick babies,
they will no longer mimic the sounds, facial expressions, or actions of
that person.
Diane Poulin-Dubois of the psychology department at Concordia says,
“Specifically, infants choose not to learn from someone who they
perceive as unreliable.” The findings published in Infant Behavior and
Development showed that babies can differentiate between credible and
un-credible sources.
The experiment looked at infants between the ages of 13 to 16
months. The babies would be excitedly presented with a box and were left
to discover if there was actually a toy inside or not. Only 34 percent
of those babies paired with the unreliable adults actually followed suit
when the adult used his or her forehead to turn on a push-on light,
while 61 percent of the babies paired with a reliable adult mimicked the
action of turning on the light with their foreheads.
After this study, Aunties may want to think twice before playing
what is believed to be a harmless prank on their infant nieces and
nephews!
Published: December 14, 2011
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