Babies ‘can recognise’ emotions in people’s faces

According to them, infants use the same brain regions that adults do when they look at the gaze of another, a base for social interactions that often appears critical for social development and might go wrong in conditions such as autism.

“In four-month-old babies, we demonstrate very early specialisation, and indeed, an adult-like pattern of activation of the brain regions that process face-to-face social interaction,” lead researcher Tobias Grossman said.

In fact, the researchers at the University of London came to the conclusion after analysing the brains of a group of babies by using near infrared light to take an image, The Daily Telegraph reported.

In the study, four-month-old infants took part in two scenarios in which a face either established mutual gaze or averted its gaze, both of which were followed by an eyebrow raise with an accompanying smile.

The researchers studied the blood oxygenation of the infant brain, as measured by near infra red light and also by a net of electrical sensors in a method called EEG that picks up brain waves.

They found that a gaze activates parts of the cortex, the rind of the brain, where the equivalent job of monitoring gazes is done by adults (the temporal and prefrontal cortex).

Babies can pick up on gaze, even when looking at a face sideways on, the researchers concluded in latest edition of the ‘Proceedings of the Royal Society, Biological Sciences’ journal.