4 ms·

It's pretty self-evident. You don't teach a baby to see, make sound or hear. Babies will perceive and respond. Of course the powers of perception will continue

It's pretty self-evident. You don't teach a baby to see, make sound or hear. Babies will perceive and respond. Of course the powers of perception will continue to develop but we know babies aren't born into this world tabula rasa. Not only that we know that fetuses can perceive the world. We know fetuses recognize its mother's voice in the womb. https://abcnews.go.com/Technology/story?id=97635 https://abcnews.go.com/Technology/story?id=97635 And premature babies benefit from hearing their mother's voice. https://www.psychologytoday.com/intl/blog/shouldstorm/201909/the-power-mothers-voice https://www.psychologytoday.com/intl/blog/shouldstorm/201909... The only mystery is the neurological mechanism of how the brain is and gets wired.

scotty79 7y ago
> It's pretty self-evident. You don't teach a baby to see, make sound or hear. It teaches itself and if you keep a baby in the darkness for enough time after birth and only later introduce it to the light and images it will not be able to see. We might be prewired but a lot of building, configuring and pruning is going on with our neural networks in response to stimuli. Without stimuli we fail to develop many functions.
- polyterative 7y ago
  "Without stimuli we fail to develop many functions" well put
- drewbug 7y ago
  > if you keep a baby in the darkness for enough time after birth and only later introduce it to the light and images it will not be able to see Is that true?
  - simiones 7y ago
    It has not been tested on human children most likely (and hopefully!) but it has been tested and is true on other mammals.
- simiones 7y ago
  I think this was also the spirit of the GP's post: there is obviously a lot of pre-wiring at least in the perception area of the brain. If there weren't, it would be impossible for the neurons to learn how to control and interpret the extremely complex input from the eye in the mere days it takes. Also, if there weren't pre-built wiring of some kind, you would not expect to see the same arbitrary definitions of objects develop in all people (I realize object perception comes a little later than simple sight). Of course, just as you say, like almost any other physiological process, if you do not expose those pre-built structures to enough stimuli, they will atrophy. This is especially true in the early developmental period.
- asynch8 7y ago
  Do not think that it's true you won't be able to see. There is at least one case where someone was blind from birth due to birthdefect, fixed later in life via surgery. Sure took him time to get used to everything or connect the image he is seeing with the object he knew by word and have felt.
- posterboy 7y ago
  The question still is how? i.e. in this case which parts fail?
- parkaboy 7y ago
  Totally. Great example is the famous paper from Held+Hein from 1963: https://marom.net.technion.ac.il/files/2016/07/Held-1963.pdf https://marom.net.technion.ac.il/files/2016/07/Held-1963.pdf Not humans but kittens. Punch line: the group that was able to receive sensorimotor feedback entrained a much better sense of spatial perception than the group that didn't. Probably why babies are always making noises and touching shit during critical period plasticity is for sensory training/refinement (among other things) Edit: I don't think there is a binary in terms of brain development pre/post birth. Of course if the baby sufficiently developms in womb it will start to get sensorimotor feedback from within the womb...
otabdeveloper4 7y ago
> fetuses It's not as if the baby somehow magically changes into something else when he or she passes the birth canal.
- empath75 7y ago
  Magically, no, but there is a distinct difference from the state where it is enveloped by the mother's womb, physically attached the placenta, drawing nutrition from the umbilical cord, lungs filled with amniotic fluid, to a breathing, crying, eating, independent baby. And of course prior to that, it was a fish like creature with a tail and gills, and prior to that a blastocyst. A baby also doesn't magically transform into a toddler, and a child, and teenager, and a man, and a senior citizen and a corpse, either. And yet somehow we manage to maintain different terms for these stages of life without confusing anyone unduly.
  - zdragnar 7y ago
    > independent baby Yet, we also don't dehumanize people who are on life support in hospitals. In context of the debate around start of life and abortion in the US, at least, both baby and fetus are heavily loaded terms whose meanings are divorced from actual science. Edit: for example, CNN recently retracted certain wording on an anti-infanticide bill for babies born during botched abortions. I believe the wording was something along the lines of "fetus that was born".

scotty79 7y ago

> It's pretty self-evident. You don't teach a baby to see, make sound or hear. It teaches itself and if you keep a baby in the darkness for enough time after birth and only later introduce it to the light and images it will not be able to see. We might be prewired but a lot of building, configuring and pruning is going on with our neural networks in response to stimuli. Without stimuli we fail to develop many functions.

polyterative 7y ago
"Without stimuli we fail to develop many functions" well put
drewbug 7y ago
> if you keep a baby in the darkness for enough time after birth and only later introduce it to the light and images it will not be able to see Is that true?
- simiones 7y ago
  It has not been tested on human children most likely (and hopefully!) but it has been tested and is true on other mammals.
simiones 7y ago
I think this was also the spirit of the GP's post: there is obviously a lot of pre-wiring at least in the perception area of the brain. If there weren't, it would be impossible for the neurons to learn how to control and interpret the extremely complex input from the eye in the mere days it takes. Also, if there weren't pre-built wiring of some kind, you would not expect to see the same arbitrary definitions of objects develop in all people (I realize object perception comes a little later than simple sight). Of course, just as you say, like almost any other physiological process, if you do not expose those pre-built structures to enough stimuli, they will atrophy. This is especially true in the early developmental period.
asynch8 7y ago
Do not think that it's true you won't be able to see. There is at least one case where someone was blind from birth due to birthdefect, fixed later in life via surgery. Sure took him time to get used to everything or connect the image he is seeing with the object he knew by word and have felt.
posterboy 7y ago
The question still is how? i.e. in this case which parts fail?
parkaboy 7y ago
Totally. Great example is the famous paper from Held+Hein from 1963: https://marom.net.technion.ac.il/files/2016/07/Held-1963.pdf https://marom.net.technion.ac.il/files/2016/07/Held-1963.pdf Not humans but kittens. Punch line: the group that was able to receive sensorimotor feedback entrained a much better sense of spatial perception than the group that didn't. Probably why babies are always making noises and touching shit during critical period plasticity is for sensory training/refinement (among other things) Edit: I don't think there is a binary in terms of brain development pre/post birth. Of course if the baby sufficiently developms in womb it will start to get sensorimotor feedback from within the womb...

otabdeveloper4 7y ago

> fetuses It's not as if the baby somehow magically changes into something else when he or she passes the birth canal.

empath75 7y ago
Magically, no, but there is a distinct difference from the state where it is enveloped by the mother's womb, physically attached the placenta, drawing nutrition from the umbilical cord, lungs filled with amniotic fluid, to a breathing, crying, eating, independent baby. And of course prior to that, it was a fish like creature with a tail and gills, and prior to that a blastocyst. A baby also doesn't magically transform into a toddler, and a child, and teenager, and a man, and a senior citizen and a corpse, either. And yet somehow we manage to maintain different terms for these stages of life without confusing anyone unduly.
- zdragnar 7y ago
  > independent baby Yet, we also don't dehumanize people who are on life support in hospitals. In context of the debate around start of life and abortion in the US, at least, both baby and fetus are heavily loaded terms whose meanings are divorced from actual science. Edit: for example, CNN recently retracted certain wording on an anti-infanticide bill for babies born during botched abortions. I believe the wording was something along the lines of "fetus that was born".