A study conducted by scientists in the US has discovered that infants are capable of arriving at logical conclusions through pure reasoning, DPA reported.
The scientists showed 12-month-old infants videos with physically possible, impossible or unlikely scenes. The babies watched the physically impossible and unlikely scenes for longer, according to the researchers findings, which have been published in the journal Science.
The report's authors conclude that the longer a child watched a video, the more surprised it was at its contents. Institute of Technology says true intelligence is the ability to use past experience to reach abstract conclusions from new situations.
Babies are capable of understanding that an object cannot simply disappear into thin air or pass through a solid wall. They are also aware that an object is not capable of travelling over a long distance in a short space of time.
Report co-author Joshua B. Tenenbaum from the Massachusetts
The videos watched by the babies contained the following scenes: four objects of different shapes and colours bouncing inside a container. The container was covered for a moment and then one of the objects exited the container.
Three factors were altered in the videos: the variety of objects, the closeness of the objects to the container's opening as well as the length of time the container was hidden from view.
In the scenes where the container was covered for only a short moment (0.04 seconds), the babies were surprised when an object that was furthest from the opening fell out of the container. In scenes where the container was hidden for longer (2 seconds) the infants were most surprised when the least common object (the sole blue object among the collection of red objects) fell out.
The researchers found babies are capable of combining a range of facts to arrive at logical conclusions. Tenenbaum is planning to repeat the study using other physical principles that babies are apparently capable of understanding such as gravity and friction.