Laura Schulz: The surprisingly logical minds of babies

How do babies learn so much from so little so quickly? In a fun, experiment-filled talk, cognitive scientist Laura Schulz shows how our young ones make decisions with a surprisingly strong sense of logic, well before they can talk.
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[@Blurns]

What I've learned from this video is that we need more baby scientists. (Preferably with tiny labcoats)

[@OriginLinear]

Blurns Labcoats provide +10 intelligence.

[@atylusulyta]

every baby IS a scientist...put a lab coat on each one of them and call them Einstein! lol

[@kevinfell8488]

Very revealing experiments... excellent speaker. One of my favorite Ted Talks.

[@maartendas1358]

Since children learn so much from just a few examples... we, as adults, have a big responsibility to give good examples.

[@darknevin]

thumbs up for anyone who is doing the PSY1102 bonus question for their midterms

[@VenatrixOoriana]

Yuuuuuup hahahaha

[@tessroberts6711]

uOttawa? It is the same this year aha

[@Kian_Mansour]

ayyy 1102 gang good luck tmr fam

[@sarahchesnick2721]

🤣🤣🤣

[@aryangupta1971]

Coursera brought me here

[@ChrisSeltzer]

Best TED talk in a long time.

[@emagotis]

She is very adorable at 17:34 makes me wanna find out more about her. Also, her comment at 17:45 is incredible and it goes with what I am thinking since i was a child: You are beyond the capabilities what everybody around you thinks you have as a child. Something I think can handicap a child's development in some ways - reducing their self-esteem to that of an adult perception of what a child should be capable of.

[@ThisIsMyFullName]

Robby Rob It definitely can, in a big way! We are a byproduct of our parents, both biologically and psychologically. This has been proven many times. For instance, if you're born into a family where one of your parents are an alcoholic, there is a very high probability of you ending up becoming an alcoholic, as well. Despite the fact that the logical thing, would be to learn from our parents mistakes, the truth is that we actually adopt the same mistakes. So it doesn't only matter what you teach your child, but also how you approach and talk with your child.

[@emagotis]

ThisIsMyFullName ...and child learn so much from observation. As parents and adults we are mostly responsible for the things we do to each other in the eyes of a child - and forget about it to do most too often.

[@ThisIsMyFullName]

Robby Rob Oh yeah. If a parent avoids talking to strangers, the child will become afraid of strangers. And if a parent acts rude to other people, the child will also act rude to his/her friends. Many people think that bad behaviour in children, only arises because parents allow it. But telling a child "no" doesn't matter, if you then turn around and do the bad behaviour yourself. In a child's eyes, parents can't do anything wrong.

[@helimax]

Robby Rob , Google Epigenetics and the Agouti mouse. It's not well proven in Human's yet but I think it will explain a lot and also add a deeper level of meaning to peoples lives, like they CAN make a difference beyond raising a child well with the DNA ( hardware) they themselves inherited, they also give them them some amount of Epigenetics ( Firmware if you will ) which lives on temporarily across a few generations. Kind of explaining the rise and fall of families through individual endeavor ( or lack there of ).

[@JJDvorshak]

I totally agree. FYI, it is termed: ''learned helpnessnes''.

[@lilacosmanthus]

I did like what she implied at at the end though... How _are_ our minds so efficient with so little that's given to us, whereas machines have to have billions of prerequisites? What is in our DNA and food that makes our minds so brilliant at what it does? And what controls the brain? If the brain writes instructions for our bodily systems, who writes the directions for the brain?

[@GuyWithAnAmazingHat]

I always find that psychologists and neuroscientists always underestimate technology in terms of computing power while computer scientists and engineers will underestimate the human brain. Neuroscientists will think that intelligence and consciousness will not be surpassed by AI anytime soon and computer scientists will boldly predict when the human brain will be surpassed.

[@alejandrinos]

GuyWithAnAmazingHat Well of course. Nobody wants to believe that the things they find uncomfortable are right around the corner. For example, if the brain mapping project is completed in the next 5 to 10 years, future psychologists who are just now starting their careers might find themselves jobless.

[@elinope4745]

GuyWithAnAmazingHat i don't think the two are really comparable, the idea of comparing them is a fallacy. one is made of silicon chips, the other is organic in nature. they do not follow the same rules, they are like comparing apples and oranges. when will an orange catch up to an apple? computers are doing crazy things, they make up 70% of the stock markets. they are learning to see, to read, write and speak. they recognize novel objects. whether they are comparable to human brains or not, i have heard predictions by intelligent people that 80% of current jobs in the US will be replaced by automated labor in the next 40 years. there will undoubtedly be new jobs made in the process, but there will have to be some massive changes in society.

[@GuyWithAnAmazingHat]

Eli Nope Actually they are very similar in nature, the brain and computers are both machines that are powered by, store and process information by using electrons. Even biologists understand that, what they underestimate is the rate technology is developing. And yes because of how fast computer processing speed has increased, the variety of new tasks computers can tackle has increased as well, many jobs are going to be replaced by computers.

[@elinope4745]

GuyWithAnAmazingHat the problem is that our brain competes with itself, and the algorithms do not. the big impact here is by the lymbic system and by hormones. they effectively increase or decrease specific target neural tissue groups from firing or not firing. in the end it is still binary (action potential or lack thereof). but the process that determines it is very much determined by a lot more connections and interactions that are able to be replicated by computers anytime soon (in the next 40 years). current deep learning takes millions (and sometimes billions) of computers working together. the human brain's decision making process is a competition between immense numbers of complex, competing neurons not just in the brain but in all parts of the body. (touching that burner or getting hungry have massive impacts on your decisions). we also have hundreds of millions of years of evolutionary hard wiring built into our decision making process (much more than just neurons and neural connections, also includes all the chemical operations impacting these neurons from other parts of the body). the computers have no such hard wiring, do not have limbic systems (are incapable of emotion and treat memory in a fundamentally different way) one day in the future perhaps a computer will be able to replicate a human brain. but it will just be one of many other tasks that computer could do. by the time computers "catch up" to humans, they will already be superior because they will be able to do more than "just" what a human could do. they can't be compared. they will look very different from each other when they are capable of executing the same number of tasks. and the tasks they can perform may have some overlap but will not be identical.

[@joannabaker7402]

Eli Nope good 👏🏼 freakin 👏🏼 answer 👏🏼

[@iluan_]

I've seen so many college students (including myself), from areas of knowledge that range from biology to marketing, banging their heads against the wall while learning about experimental design and statistical analysis that many times I thought human minds are just not made for this kind of thinking, and then I see babies doing it as it is the most natural thing in the world! What on earth happens to us in childhood that we lose this mentally?! We should rethink our educational systems to ensure that this way of understanding the world stays in or mind for life.

[@SatanicBunny666]

iluan Hernandez We do not lose the ability. It's still there and each and every one of us uses it every single day. The kind of mechanism shown here in which you see something happen and the automatically deduce something about the object(s) is still very much innate to adults. That is to say, if you performed a similar experiment on adults they'd react the same way really. But this doesn't mean we're all naturally capable of doing statistical analysis as it relates to science, because that requires other skills which are not as innate and automatic, such as understanding the math involved and preferably liking it. Even though kids can do this with concrete objects they too cannot do it with large and complex data sets because that requires different kind of thinking. This experiment is definitely cool and demonstrates such how great the human mind is even in its most basic form. But it's still a mistake to say that because we can use inference to learn about properties of objects, we should also be capable of doing statistical math with ease. The two scenarios aren't exactly comparable in a meaningful way. Which is not to say that we shouldn't keep developing our methods of educating both kids and adults, I just think you're going a bit far if you're assuming that because of experiments like these we should all be statistical wizards.

[@alejandrinos]

iluan Hernandez One thing you have to take into account is the fact that learning requires a lot of motivation. A little kid will almost always be motivated to learn something new, while most adults have a well defined personality, tastes and expectations that may either help them or hinder them in their learning.

[@ArtisticAsian1014]

Babies are amazing when it comes to learning. The way they interpret and associate things, how fast they pick up concepts...etc I love how the little girl pushed the button and then internally counted before re pushing the button aka "one two three *push button". Side note..who dislikes babies?

[@coisasdasuacabeca]

Fantastic talk. Really an interesting insight into how we interpret data in our own brains.

[@lveronese]

Amazing research.. Amazing speech

[@GabrielaDutraa]

unbelievable!!!!!!!! amazing presentation that ends with a powerful message!

[@MrC0MPUT3R]

She's definitely opened a can of worms with the machine learning folks.

[@puellanivis]

MrC0MPUT3R Jeopardy: "This trusted friend is the first non-dairy powdered creamer." Watson: "What is milk?" (no, seriously, cosmiclog.nbcnews.com/_news/2011/02/15/6061217-beyond-jeopardy-watson-wins?lite)

[@princeofexcess]

MrC0MPUT3R once AI can design AI well. (not even better than humans can just well enough) The potential of AI will grow exponentially. Right now the costs of creating an AI software are really large. As soon as the computers will be able to do it it will decrease enormously which will lead to even better AI which can program significantly better code. What it means is that once we reach a certain threshold it will be blink of an eye before we have extremely intelligent machines.

[@armandocornaglia1753]

Not really remember Data from Star Trek?

[@MrC0MPUT3R]

Armando Cornaglia A fictional character from a fictional show?

[@JJDvorshak]

MrC0MPUT3R Star Trek. And I assure you* it has predicted more technologies, that are around today- e.g. IPad- than your Oprah ever has. & FYI; science-fiction has always been ahead of it's time for centuries or even in some cases perhaps for millenia. Tell me mister C0MPUT3R- yeah right- what recent technology have you inspired to be made after your brilliantly clever and creative ideas. None!? Perhaps then, you should listen more and talk less.

[@jwh0122]

The same logical mind is also used by babies in language acquisition: distinguish their mother tongue from others (generalizing the sounds), learning new words (causal reasoning), conjugation, grammar, etc.

[@andrewverbovy4615]

Experiments on children seems to be the best way for researching human brain.

[@dclikemtndew]

Not even 3 minutes in and i can't stand to hear that voice any longer. It just really grinds my gears.

[@ForAnAngel]

Yolo Swaggins I loved the way she talks. She sounds really smart to me and I think I'm going to look for other lectures she's given.

[@koraxsan]

Yolo Swaggins Try banging some rocks together, think you might like the sound and the activity.

[@fmar105]

koraxsan Lololol

[@uhRoid]

+96 The way she says "science" makes me cringe

[@gakyung_kim]

awesome babies, awesome talk💟 liked it!

[@bbb10101]

with these experiments they mustn't overlook the fact that children might only imitate and not actually "think", for example, when they saw that the toy works if you give it to someone, they did just that, maybe by imitation, and when the toy either worked or not they changed it because it was of no interest and grabbed the nearest object that was also a toy. They should have tried a third experiment in which the toy doesn't work but you don't show it (don't test it in front of them). If the child reacts to this in the same way as the previous experiment then the data is of no use.

[@arBmind]

We should invest more in treating and teaching our children right. But we try to teach machines to imitate humans. Machines may do Big Data, but humans learn from little data - which is much faster and more flexible.

[@soilofk]

That’s why investing in early childhood education programs and early childhood educators is crucial for everyone.

[@AliceChen]

This is fascinating! I love it!

[@ParvezKhusro]

Above all she is an excellent orator.

[@waitedspider90]

Oh my god, how many times is she gonna say blue balls?

[@TheStracky]

Great speech, very interesting subject as well as results!

[@jbredice1]

Interesting. I wish we would invest more time in our children. They are our future

[@sophiareyna4087]

This was awesome. I'm 4 months pregnant and wait to try these tests lol

[@denatabatabaeian317]

Have you tried any of these experiments? :)

[@anderson1709]

Great mind... Awesome lecture!

[@thelifeofzoe9201]

I Love smart people great ted talk

[@8xster8]

Why is that moderator so close to the speaker at the end? It seems so uncomfortable.

[@tsummerlee]

Loved it.

[@AnimeshSharma1977]

too bad that most of us lose this ability while growing up ;)

[@DanteJohnson]

Enjoyable talk. I wasn't convinced that those tasks were "uniquely human" though. I would like to see similar expirements with apes and crows and dolphins. And during the brief questions at the end, there was a mention of human irrationality as discussed within behavioral economics. That irrationality isn't what comes to mind when people hear the word, just like scientific theory isn't what comes to mind when some people hear the word theory. Rational agents in economics have no biases and perfect understanding. People behave reliably and relatively consistently, keeping within their understanding of a situation and their personal goals. They are doing what makes sense based on what they understand. That is what most people would consider being rational. That is not the economic definition.

[@AnimeshSharma1977]

I agree, we give too much importance to our superior abilities while there are evidence that it might not be true in several areas, for example the chimps outsmart us on working memory kzbin.info/www/bejne/sKS7gWunmqt5bKM ... and nice to see that you empahsized the common sense :)

[@Linkfanoftheyear]

@@AnimeshSharma1977 that video is notorious for being an example of bad science though. What they do is train a Chimp to do a task, and then pit it against children who have never seen the task before. The chimp didn't start off that good at the game, it developed its skill over time

[@EddieKMusic]

I think this information about babies could be used to help design an AI system that learns better

[@pipergirl7720]

this changes ur whole perspective from ,small cute babies to urself the human brain is underestimated, rather it has been taken for granted if only we analyse all the subconscious decision we make in everyday life the world would be a different place to live take for example typing on the keyboard we all do it ,sometimes we dont even have to look at the keys but ask somebody to locate a key verbally ,they most definitely stumble

[@pipergirl7720]

Piper Girl could*

[@hyenaedits3460]

That's why I take issue with people who think children are stupid.

[@catfish6628]

the "dinosaur" shown near the start of the video is not a dinosaur

[@theultimatereductionist7592]

11m13s I am genuinely puzzled: HOW DID they get the toy to work?

[@gopalphamber]

This is what pisses me of. You got babies learning their values so quickly from the smallest of information and the you get older an find yourself struggling to get values from their information, as much as it is, and I'm think 'have you ever considered the fact that the line between babies and adults might just be progressive'. what i mean to say here is that you don't suddenly become an adult, you start with nothing and you get better and better and then, you struggle. Studies have show than young people mainly digest information in small amount and then is required to have a lot of breaks. but as you get older you don't get the same amount of breaks, you're forced to just 'deal with it'. I think that the path of education should complement this process and maybe it's just me, in UK, but i don't think our current state of education does complement the sciences of human grow. Please do reply, I would love to hear what everyone thinks about this.

[@robert-andreidamian790]

Gopal Phamber funny thing, when i was a child , i mean like 4-5, i was wondering at what point one becomes an adult and i had this image of a class of students in highschool where one of them suddenly becomes grown up and leaves the class like "I am an adult now, i've got important things to do, see ya when you reach my state of development". It was almost like leveling up and i don't think i've even played a character level-based game until that age. Anyway, my point here is that now i totally agree with you, there no certain point when transform(*poof* just like that) from a child to an adult and it's rather a 'progressive' development. Also you can't tell that all humans are equally mature at a certain age (like saying : you're 20 you are a complete adult now, no trace of a child left inside you). About the educational system : it is just wrong it has so many flaws it puzzles me 'This thing evolved for like what, few hundred years ? and it is still so low..' . The testing of knowledge in children is wrong, the selection of teachers, based on similar tests can't be anything that wrong, the funding in education is so low it's dumb to even talk about it.And yes, the amount of information they force you to learn is too high, so it leaves the student little time to focus on learning what is really of interest to him.

[@gopalphamber]

It annoyes me because I'm an aspiring teacher and ive read all about the state of education as it stands today. I do believe critical thinking needs to be added because I think, based my life, friends and research, that a lot of parents aren't (for lack of a better term) looking after their kids properly.

[@robert-andreidamian790]

The problem with parents is that they have been part of the educational system in theri own time. It's a cycle. You do need some courage to try becoming a teacher. i wish you best of luck.

[@gopalphamber]

Agreed and thanks. I do think imperlermentinug critical thinking would change how people would approach things and stop parents fighting education because it goes against their ideologies. I truly believe that there is value in being a sceptic, i just want people to hand things smarter. Smarter the people, the better the world. Happy Typing

[@daxxonjabiru428]

If I was a logical baby, I sure turned into an illogical toddler. (And I'm not much better as an adult!)

[@avedic]

This talk was quite charming and fun....and rather interesting. Watching babies is kind of like watching chimpanzees or other closely-related apes....you can tell that there's a glimmer of insight behind their otherwise glazed expressions.

[@RekMone]

So babies generalize from particular observations iff they deem the sample representative. That answers the "Problem of Induction"?! David Hume would be thrilled!

[@OctavKitty]

Ich Nichtdu What do you mean? From what I (foolishly) learned, Hume said that induction is only an approximation since if we can’t learn the real cause of the effects we’re studying, then there will always be unpredictable events. There will always be exceptions. It’s not because, for instance, you could always eat until now that you’ll always eat. It may be highly likely, it doesn’t mean it’s certain. And what is uncertain hardly produces science (science is developed with necessary or impossible things, not really with contingent, but of course in practice it’s different. Hume was a statistician). Since induction isn’t absolutely reliable, then we theorically shouldn’t use it, unlike deduction. Although since Hume also questions the existence of causation... The babies used inductions, it worked, they understand the link of causality. However they don’t solve the induction problem...

[@nkosiguduza2131]

As everybody is so big on equality there should be Men involved, this way you'll be able to calculate speed and how babies function via gender presence. Keep Calm & Talk About It. Simply Infiltrating Thought.

[@gio5969]

It would always work if it was AC/DC

[@45von]

There is No reason to believe that as we, humans, advance in our mental abilities, So will our development of our machines ... Both have unlimited futures.

[@uhRoid]

18:13 I really, really doubt that.

[@randomvintagefilm273]

I'm glad the babies learned something because I sure didn't!

[@theultimatereductionist7592]

I recommend rapper Jon Lajoie's video "I Started as a Baby". His music video will explain everything.

[@Ndo01]

Awesome data

[@TheMoni7548]

Great !

[@MrRishik123]

so babies are critiical thinkers until religion gets in the way

[@WrenAkula]

Mr Rishi The Cookie Maybe some day, memetic vaccines will be part of regular healthcare.

[@Mr.Marbles]

***** religion has nothing to do with knowing everything.

[@MrRishik123]

Well religion makes people just accept the way things are by brainwashing kids and adults alike to thinking that God just made things that way rather than looking for the explanation through the scientific method. I accept that science does not know everything and that is will be an extremely long time till we do know basically everything; but to just say God done it rather than looking for the real reason based upon thinking logically and critically to arrive at the real conclusion as to why certain things are the way they are.

[@Jpython4]

Mr Rishi The Cookie As a suitably brain washed catholic you offend me.

[@WrenAkula]

MierD. Luffy Fortunately having been born without any concept of a god or prescribed "purpose", doesn't seem to have stopped these children from learning. We'll keep looking for answers, and you can keep wishing for them.

[@reachforacreech]

and then they go to school where all that is thrown into the garbage in place of a single person going threw some standardized parroting

[@Apjooz]

reachforacreech Also known as knowledge.

[@thebluefarmer6406]

Pterosaurs are not dinosaurs. just say'en

[@melexdy]

Interesting but squeaky :)

[@SavorTheWin]

why is there always one guy who cant stop coughing? can we ask him to leave?

[@moondoddler6345]

I'm wondering if most of the females acted like that compared to male babies

[@marcyf4459]

Anyone else wonder if she uses CGM? 😂😂

[@silver2zilver]

I want to watch this but I dont want to listen to her... thank god for captions

[@maxrav1831]

One point i would like to make is so what? They are human beings and intelligence is biological and at that age purely biological so nothing to beat our chests about. It's not an act of will it's an act of nature and the big brain nature has given us. A child that age isn't self aware enough to logically think things through like older children or adults it's purely wiring and nature and for children emotion....I want

[@mathias4702]

which of the books at kzbin.info/www/bejne/r2KueomQrJx9rs0m25s can you guys recommend?

[@moafighting1597]

Anyone from Pys 101-107?

[@Tahamul]

But was the toy broken?

[@donaldsanor2359]

Just thoughts ! As always greater intreupts. The fund

[@Viktir123]

This leads me to believe that babies wouldn't naturally seek religion on their own if dim-witted adults didn't shove it down their throat and tell them it's reality since they're a toddler.

[@hannahwallace5466]

Was there a difference between boys and girls

[@joywebster2678]

They won't say because of the pressure of gender politics

[@anushwah]

@@joywebster2678 sigh it's not that deep, joy

[@TnEEn]

brilliant talk, but OMG that accent! >_

[@216trixie]

TnEEn Might be a speech impediment. But I think it's an affectation.

[@joywebster2678]

I figured dental work...drove me buggy

[@thegreatpineapple4425]

one way to improve this critical thinking is not to enforce a certain religion to a baby from a very young age. That completely ruins creative thinking. instilling morals is more important.

[@PinkishPlant]

TheGreatPineapple and instilling morals to a religious family would be teaching their kid their religion.

[@Arh6671]

What a rich woman's accent!! Anyway, good talk.. 👍

[@Savalanoghlu]

Anand Hardas As a immigrant living in Australia I did not notice such a thing in her accent or way of speech. Maybe I don't have the cultural background so I cannot get it. But not noticing such a thing helped me to just listen and get what I wanted to get from the talk. Try that if you can and if you will. Life becomes easier without such judgments.

[@MisterF_1984]

Scottzgar what are you talking about?

[@AirIUnderwater]

Oh my gods... I'm so scared now of babies. T__T They're going to kill us all!

[@xiaomanliu8583]

Hands up uoft PSY210 people

[@ajj7843]

Play food in the church nursery always needs sanitizing after services, because even though it's "big people" food like fake pizza and stuff, they still shove it in their mouth to suck on!

[@lauraschulz6065]

I love baby girl 👶👶👶👶👶👶👶👶👶👶🤗🤗🤗😜😝😛😋😜😝😛

[@theultimatereductionist7592]

#DrJillStein2016 #ZoltanIstvan2016

[@TaigiTWeseDiplomat--Formosan]

０．０

[@MrPranker247]

APSY 203 anyone?

[@gerardjones7881]

Huge time waste.

[@dattebenforcer]

What are you talking about? Women don't understand logic.

[@fmar105]

***** Swing and a miss. :( Hope you recover from that one, bud. That was bad.

[@dattebenforcer]

F Mar Truth hurts doesn't it?

[@DONALDTRUMP2024-k1l]

@@dattebenforcer thats not the truth thats just you being a dumbass

[@geekmails]

Boooooring..