Free Brain Rules for Baby by John Medina Page B

One was made of harsh wire, the other of soft terrycloth. He took newly born rhesus monkeys, removed them from their biological mothers, and placed them into cages containing both dolls. The cold, wiry doll provided food, delivered from an attached bottle. So did the soft terrycloth doll. Though the monkeys would go to both mothers to feed, they spent much more time climbing onto and clinging to the soft mom. If the babies were placed in an unfamiliar room, they clung tightly to the cloth surrogate until they felt secure enough to explore the cage on their own. If placed in that same room without the cloth mother, the animals froze in terror, then went crying and screaming, running from one object to another, seemingly looking for their lost mother.
    The preference was the same no matter how many times the experiment was done or in what variation. These experiments are heartbreaking to watch—I’ve seen old films of this stuff—and the conclusions are unforgettable. It wasn’t the presence of food that telegraphed reassurance to these little ones, a behavioral idea prevalent at the time. It was the presence or absence of a safe harbor.
    Human babies, complex as they are, are looking for the same thing.
Monkey see, monkey do
    Babies are highly attuned to these perceptions of safety, though they may not look it. At first blush, babies seem mostly preoccupied with more mundane biological processes, like eating and pooping and spitting up over your shirt. This fooled a lot of researchers into believing that babies weren’t thinking about anything at all. Scientists coined the term “tabula rasa”—blank slate—to describe these “empty” creatures. They regarded infants as merely helpless helpings of cute, controllable, human potential.
    Modern research reveals a radically different point of view. We now know that a baby’s greatest biological preoccupation involves the organ atop their necks. Infants come preloaded with lots of software in their neural hard drives, most of it having to do with learning. Want some startling examples?
    In 1979, University of Washington psychologist Andy Meltzoff stuck out his tongue at a baby 42 minutes old, then sat back to see what happened. After some effort, the baby returned the favor, slowly rolling out his own tongue. Meltzoff stuck his tongue out again. The infant responded in kind. Meltzoff discovered that babies could imitate right from the start of their little lives (or, at least, 42 minutes from the start of their little lives). That’s an extraordinary finding. Imitation involves many sophisticated realizations for babies, from discovering that other people exist in the world to realizing that they have operating body parts, and the same ones as you. That’s not a blank slate. That’s an amazing, fully operational cognitive slate.
    Capitalizing on this finding, Meltzoff designed a series of experiments revealing just how much babies are prewired to learn—and how sensitive they are to outside influences in pursuit of that goal. Meltzoff constructed a wooden box, covered by an orange plastic panel, into which he inserted a light. If he touched the panel, the light turned on.

    Meltzoff put the box between him and a 1-year-old girl, then performed an unusual stunt. He leaned forward and touched his forehead to the top of the box, which immediately lit up its interior. The baby was not allowed to touch the box. Instead, she and her mother were asked to leave the room. A week later, the baby and mother came back to the lab, and Meltzoff set the box between him and the infant. This time he did nothing but watch. The baby didn’t hesitate. As if on cue, she immediately bent forward and touched the box with her forehead. The baby had remembered! She’d had only a single exposure to this event, but she had recalled it perfectly a week later. Babies can do this all over the world.
    Those are just two examples illustrating that infants come equipped with an amazing array of