When does your baby start to understand others’ mind?
How do psychologists study babies’ mind-reading development?
Can parents enhance babies’ mind-reading ability?
Babies have amazing mind-reading ability that adults may not well realize or just take for granted. Such ability enables them to understand caregivers’ attention, goals, intention and helps them to interact with the world effectively.
In a talk held on May 1 (Friday), Dr. Lamei Wang, a research fellow of the HKU Baby Scientist Program, shared very informative and interesting insights about babies’ mind-reading ability with 50 new and expectant parents. First, she introduced the developmental trajectory of mind-reading ability in 0-1 year old infants; and then briefly explained three different eye-tracking methods which psychologists use to test babies’ mind-reading ability; in the end, she offered a good deal of useful tips for parents to promote their babies mind-reading ability.
The Baby Scientist Program was started in 2010 by the Department of Psychology at the University of Hong Kong. Baby Scientists aged between 1 to 12 month-old have been recruited to help researchers understand how human perceptual and cognitive abilities develop and mature. To date, there are more than 800 baby scientist alumni members.
More information about HKU Baby Scientist Program can be found at:
https://www.psychology.hku.hk/pall/bbintroduction.html or
https://www.facebook.com/HKUbb
