1. They can hear all sound frequencies simultaneously.
A study carried out at the University of Washington found that babies' hearing is far from primitive. In fact, it turns out that they're able to hear a far wider range of frequencies than the typical adult can. They also found that they can hear them all at once, instead of having to focus on different frequencies automatically, as the rest of us do. They believe that this ability may be a remnant carried over from ancient times, when acute hearing was necessary for survival.
2. They can distinguish the faces of people and animals.
Babies might appear to be unable to recognize the faces of people who aren't in their immediate family, even if they've seen them a number of times before. However, research indicates that this may simply be an act - they don't show recognition because they don't feel the need to, and not because they don't actually remember them. According to researchers at the University of Sheffield and the University of London, six-month-old babies are as good at recognizing human faces as adults are. What's more, their studies found that they were even able to distinguish and remember the faces of different monkeys, which is something that most adults find close to impossible.
3. They are excellent judges of character.
When a group of researchers set up an experiment to see how well babies can judge character, they set up a puppet show, which featured one obviously good character and another one who was pretty obviously evil. After they show, they tested two groups of babies to see which puppet they'd rather play with. 14 out of the 16 10-month-olds opted for the good puppet, while the entire group of 12-month-olds did the same. This helped the team prove that we are born with the ability to judge character, and is not something that is instilled in us through our upbringing, as was previously thought.
4. They can learn language through the womb.
Learning a language takes a lot of time and practice, but luckily for us, human beings have the uncanny ability to start the learning process even before we're born! Researchers found that babies who were only 30 hours old were already able to recognize the vowel sounds from their parents' mother tongue. They discovered this by plugging pacifiers into specialized computers and making babies suck on them. Incredibly, when exposed to foreign languages, the babies sucked on their pacifiers for a much longer time than when they listened to their mother tongues.
5. They are aware of social interactions.
A study carried out on babies between one and five days old shows how babies are far more aware of social interactions than many professionals had originally thought possible. When monitoring the part of the babies' brain that's responsible for social awareness, they found that genuine social interactions, such as friendly gestures and facial expressions, triggered a very different response to non-social actions, like a hand manipulating an object. This suggests that we are all wired to recognize social cues from birth.
6. They can tell when the physics don't add up.
When you catch babies staring hard at something, it's easy to come to the conclusion that they're doing it for no reason at all. However, what we often fail to realize is that babies are actually humans in training, and such observations actually serve to teach them just how the world around them works. Researchers have found that babies as young as 11 months old are able to pick up on impossible events, such as objects seeming to work against gravity. They even go as far as attempting to confirm their suspicions, by picking up these objects and throwing them to the ground, to see if they continue to act in such an unnatural way.
7. They have a fair grasp of probability.
Researchers from the University of British Columbia have found that babies as young as 8 months old are able to make use of simple probability when making decisions and drawing conclusions. In one of the experiments, babies were shown a box of ping-pong balls which were mostly white, but had a small number of red ones thrown in as well. When they started pulling them out in groups of five at random, the babies almost always acted surprised when there was a greater number of red balls.
8. They can heal without leaving scars.
Most adults are able to heal non-grievous injuries over time, yet it usually comes at quite a cost, since an unsightly scar is often permanently left in the wound's place. However, this is a very rare occurrence for babies, since most wounds completely recover without leaving any form of trace. Not only this, but babies are actually able to fully recover from quite a number of different health issues, such as bone disorders and deformities.
If you enjoyed reading this post, then don't forget to share it with other baby-lovers that you know. We also think that you'd find this guide to a baby's growth quite interesting, too.
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