1) The human brain develops the most connections early in life from birth to age 3, with the prefrontal cortex developing the most connections between ages 3 to 10. 2) Babies are intuitive statisticians and scientists, able to learn probabilities and identify causal relationships through exploration and experimentation. 3) Babies attend more to people than objects, focusing on faces, while adults attend more to objects and tasks. This shows babies are born learning about people and social relationships.

1. The Philosophical Baby
Alison Gopnik
Dept. of Psychology
University of California at Berkeley
alisongopnik.com

3. Longer Childhood, Bigger
Brain, Smarter Animal

4. Developing Brain Connections
age: 0 1 5 10 years adult
70
birth adolescence
60
50
40
synapses
auditory
cortex
30
20
visual
10 cortex
prefrontal
0 cortex
Adapted from P. Huttenlocher et al,1979-1997

5. Bayesian Babies

6. Bayesian Babies

7. The Blicket Detector
Some blocks are blickets. Blickets make the
blicket detector light up and play music.

8. Preschool Statistics
Block A: P=2/3 Block B: P=1/3
100%
Block A
80%
Block B
60%
“Make it go” 40%
20%
0%
Kushnir & Gopnik, 2007

9. Explanation and Exploration:
Cristine Le Gare

10. Adult Attention - Johnson & Vul

11. Baby Attention - Johnson & Vul