Baby minds

© 2024 Gwen Dewar, Ph.D., all rights reserved

Old myths that die hard.

“At birth, the mind is blank slate.”

This might have seemed like a logical conclusion once, but it has been thoroughly debunked by science. Babies begin learning even before they are born, and they already possess skills that help them make sense of the world. I write about in my guide to newborn cognitive development. 

“Babies don’t recognize their primary caregivers — not until they are much older.”

Wrong! In reality, newborns can recognize the voices of their biological mothers from “overhearing” her in the womb. And despite their blurry vision, newborns they learn to recognize their parents’ faces very quickly indeed — within a few hours. Read more about it in this article.

“There’s no point talking to babies, because they can’t understand language.”

Argh! No! From the very beginning, babies are working at learning language. The more we talk with them, the sooner they learn. Check this Parenting Science guide for tips.

“Babies lack object permanence. If you move outside their field of view, they think you no longer exist.”

Maybe this one got you, and I definitely don’t blame you if it did. It’s been repeated everywhere, including in classrooms. But the scientists who actually specialize in infant cognition disproved this notion a long time ago. With rigorous, experimental research.

Yes, babies are still developing the ability to solve problems that require them to reaching for disappearing objects. But from the time they can sit up and track moving objects with their eyes, they have expectations about everyday physics. And one of those expectations is that an object continues to exist even if it moves out of sight. I’ll be publishing about this one soon.

“Babies can’t remember anything.” 

This is one of the craziest myths to me. If babies couldn’t remember anything, how would they ever learn? Yet I can see where this misconception might originate: We adults can’t remember our very early life experiences, which could make us question whether babies are capable of retention.

But our struggles with infantile amnesia isn’t proof that babies can’t encode memories. It doesn’t tell us whether or not your baby can learn routines, or remember something he encountered yesterday, or recognize the sights, sounds, and odors of the doctor’s office she visited last week.

When researchers have tested baby’s memories experimentally, they’ve confirmed that babies can and do remember things. I wrote about this for Psychology Today years ago (which you can find here), and I will continue to cover this topic on Parenting Science.

How important is it to correct these misconceptions? 

The trouble with the myths is that they aren’t merely fanciful. They can have serious consequences. If you operate on the assumption that your baby’s mind is empty –that your baby is an uncomprehending, unfeeling machine — you’re at risk of making bad choices. Even dangerous ones.

I mean, consider this chilling myth:

“Babies don’t really feel things — not distress, not pain.”

This belief has had horrifying consequences. As I’ve noted elsewhere, it was once commonplace for members of the medical profession to deny that babies experience pain.  In fact, until the late 1980s, infants with serious health problems would undergo surgery without benefit of anethesia. We all owe a debt to medical researchers like Dr. Kanwaljeet Anand, who debunked this myth and made medical procedures far more humane — and safe — for babies.

So yeah. Dismissing or denying the abilities of babies can come with a cost — sometimes a truly terrible one.

But learning about infant minds doesn’t just protect us from mistakes. It’s also exciting, uplifting, awe-inspiring. And if you are lucky enough to have a baby in your life, you can use this knowledge to make discoveries of your own — to reach new levels of understanding about what your baby is thinking, feeling, and perceiving.

That’s why I’ve written so much about the fascinating science of infant emotional, social, and cognitive development: To battle the myths, and help readers connect with their infants are thinking and feeling. Check out my articles about baby minds below.