Babies use logical thinking to solve the mysteries of the world around them. They are able to reason logically and make hypotheses about uncertain future events, according to the article by a scientist from Mars Hill University.
Babies are purposeful and meaningful creatures. They are more complex than most people think. A new study by an international team of scientists has shown that children as young as twelve months are capable of reasoning.
Scientists have conducted a series of experiments to investigate the logical processes of babies aimed at understanding the world order. It turns out that they are capable of building and adjusting hypotheses about uncertain future events.
There are some "elementary logical representations" with which babies can formulate such hypotheses. In order to determine the basis on which children's reasoning is built, scientists drew attention to "one simple logical representation and rule: disjunction (A or B) and disjunctive syllogism (not therefore B)."
Because the children's visual attention was drawn to what they found most interesting at a given moment, the amount of time they spent looking at various objects was measured to determine if the unexpected outcome had an impact on their level of interest. As it was suggested, babies stared longer at unexpected results than expected, while being aware of what would happen next.
To determine the presence of conclusions made by infants at the appropriate stages, scientists analyzed their oculomotor reactions. The pupils in children were more dilated when there was a false assumption, indicating a high cognitive activity.
Although this kind of logic is a rudimentary form of it, the authors of the article note that it is it that is most conducive to the development of logic a la "Sherlock Holmes". The results of this study suggest that the reasoning ability that strikes us in Sherlock is not really rare or acquired, it is innate and universal.
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