Babies have surprising abilities: Can speak ‘dog’

baby and dog

Forget prodigies—normal babies have some surprising abilities of their own. They can understand dogs’ barks, have a sense of justice, and can even crack jokes (well, very basic ones).

Adults underestimated babies’ abilities for a long time, according to a column by Toronto Star columnist and author Ann Douglas. “We treated them as if they were in some developmental stage of limbo, waiting to awake from a Sleeping Beauty-like state of not-quite-being,” she writes.

However, as scientists have figured better ways to reveal and measure young babies’ abilities, we’ve learned that they are extremely aware of their environment.

For instance, a 2009 study from Brigham Young University showed that babies can interpret the emotion behind dog barks, matching happy yapping to pictures of happy dogs, and snarls to pictures of threatening-looking pooches.

More research from early last year shows that babies understand that social hierarchies are often based on size, according to LiveScience. From the age of 10 months, babies shown scenes of a big cartoon block yielding the right of way to a smaller one showed their surprise by staring longer, compared to when the smaller block deferred.

Meanwhile, researchers from the University of Montreal discovered that babies who are less than 24 hours old can already recognize their mothers’ voices. Electrodes applied to the heads of newborn babies show more brain activity when their mother’s speak, compared to female nurses.

A study from the University of British Columbia showed that babies have a basic sense of justice. Beginning at about age eight months, babies don’t mind seeing people who have misbehaved being punished, and dislike seeing them rewarded.

Babies also have a rudimentary idea of practical joking, which develops around their first birthday. Researchers from Charles Sturt University in Australia observed babies offering a toy to another baby, and then snatching it back at the last second.