An article published in the Wall Street Journal describes recent I-LABS findings about baby brains and social behavior, which provide some of the first evidence of “body maps” in the infant brain.
“Humans have a mapping ability that lets them see themselves in relation to others, thus helping them to navigate in the social world,” the article begins.
It goes on to describe I-LABS discoveries revealing how “…babies have interactive neural maps that match their own bodily sensations to their observations of other people’s movements.”
The Wall Street Journal piece, by columnist Susan Pinker, is linked to a paper by Andrew Meltzoff, co-director of I-LABS, and collaborator Peter Marshall, of Temple University, which was published in the September issue of the leading journal Trends in Cognitive Sciences.
“Even a young baby recognizes the distinction between his body and yours, but that the pattern of movements is the same. And that’s the fundamental way he learns to be ‘one of us,'” Meltzoff says in the Wall Street Journal article, published online Oct. 21 and appearing in Saturday, Oct. 24 print issue of the newspape.
Read the Wall Street Journal story.
Read the news release about the research findings.
Read the research paper.