When we think of babies, naturally we believe that not a lot of action occurs between their brain neurons. Recently, I have read several articles depicting research that has been done to prove otherwise. These studies made me recall the times when I was playing with my younger cousins. There were times when I have been shocked by the amount of understanding you can perceive from babies. For example, when playing with my cousin who was a baby at the time, I was able to hide his toy in a box. He continually stared and cried at the box until I removed his toy. At the time I was too young to comprehend the amount of thought produced by my cousin at such a young age.
First, I read the article titled, "Do 18-month-olds really attribute mental states to others? A critical test". This study was rather confusing the first time reading through it. I felt that there was a lot of tests occurring simultaneously. There was also a lot of stimuli for such a young age. There was sounds, new people, blindfolds and possibly new sights. This alone could create a confound which, in turn, could skew the results of the research. Although I believe babies are capable of more profound thought than we have believed in the past, I also think that babies are more easily overwhelmed with multiple stimuli occurring around them. This study found that babies are capable of mental processing and do not rely solely on adults as "precursors".
After being completely overwhelmed myself with the past experiment, I read an article titled "Newborn babies may be more developed than we think". This article introduced many experiments in which it reveals babies thoughts. One experiment I found extremely interesting was an experiment in which it reveals that babies are able to reason using probability. Experimenters were able to discover this reasoning when they placed more pink balls in a container than yellow and noticed that multiple babies would stare longer when more yellow balls were pulled out of the container. If babies can use probability to fuel their thoughts, what else can babies do that we have not discovered yet?
Babies also understand laws of physics to a certain extent. An experiment was done were a toy car is shown passing through a solid wall. This action also causes babies to stare longer than when the toy car does not betray the laws of physics. This experiment was also explained in the article "The Brain: What Do Babies Know?". Babies, yet again, would look longer at the actions that defied physics than those that did not.
At first I was thinking, no way, babies do not understand physics nor probability. Yet, after reading these experiments it is clear that babies are definitely more intrigued by events that defy the laws of physics or probability. This mere fact tells us that they are confused by the defying action because they are thinking no way this can happen.
It is argued that babies and chimpanzees will mimic people's actions. The only difference is that babies will copy any action performed by a person but a chimpanzee will only copy actions that are useful to them. This being said, doesn't this mean that chimpanzees are more capable of thought than babies? Possibly in this manner, yes. But then I raise the question, can chimpanzees show the same confusion when certain actions are performed that defy physics or probabilities? Or, are chimpanzees capable of doing any sort of metal processing without adults severing as "precursors"?
So, to answer the question, yes, babies can think quite a bit. Of course not as in depth as you and I, but on a certain level the amount a baby can think is astonishing. Fifty years ago, experimenters and/or scientists did not believe babies were capable of any sort of thought. Today, we are able to say, with supporting experiments, that babies are able to understand the laws of physics and probability to a certain extent.
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