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You might think that babies don't do much besides eat and poop. ...and maybe that's kind of true.
你可能认为婴儿除了吃喝拉撒，什么也不做。也许你想的是对的。
But before they can talk or walk, infants start to do all sorts of cognitive feats that seem awfully smart for a baby.
但在他们会说话或走路之前，婴儿就开始做各种各样的认知，他们好像非常聪明。
Inside their little brains, there's a lot more going on than you might expect.
在他们小小的大脑里，发生的事情比你想象的要多得多。
In the first three months of a child's life, their brain nearly doubles in size, and it continues to grow at break-neck speed until they're 3.
在孩子出生的头三个月，他们的大脑体积几乎翻了一倍，并且在3岁之前，大脑还在以惊人的速度增长。
But what all that new brain matter is doing is a little harder to determine.
但是所有这些大脑新物质在做什么很难确定。
You can't ask babies to solve puzzles or tell you what they're thinking, so researchers have had to get creative to study infant cognition.
你不可能让婴儿去解开谜底或告诉你他们在想什么，所以研究人员不得不创造性地研究婴儿的认知能力。
They can examine what infants do, for example, like what behaviors they choose to imitate or which people or objects they interact with.
他们可以检查婴儿做什么，例如，他们选择模仿什么行为或者他们与什么人或物体互动。
And even before they can move around or make gestures, scientists can use the violation-of-expectation paradigm to peer into babies' minds.
甚至在他们能够四处走动或做出手势之前，科学家们就可以利用期望违背范式来窥探婴儿的思想。
Put simply, infants look differently at things that are surprising or unexpected so by measuring how long they stare at different scenarios or how their pupils change while they stare,
简单地说，婴儿对惊奇或意外事物的看法是不同的，所以通过测量婴儿凝视不同场景的时间或者他们凝视时瞳孔的变化，
scientists can generally tell what the baby thought would happen.
科学家们通常能辨别婴儿的想法。
Researchers can also use high-tech brain imaging techniques like functional magnetic resonance imaging or fMRI,
研究人员还可以使用高科技的脑成像技术，如功能性磁共振成像或fMRI，
which looks at blood flow to determine which brain areas are most active,
通过观察血流
or electroencephalography or EEG, which measures the electrical patterns generated by brain cells firing.
或者脑电图——测量脑细胞放电产生的电模式来确定婴儿的大脑哪个区域最活跃，
And by using some or all of these methods, psychologists have discovered infants have a lot going on in those tiny little noggins.
通过使用某些或所有这些方法，心理学家发现婴儿的小脑袋里有很多东西。
Infants as young as 9 months old seem to do simple math, for instance.
例如，9个月大的婴儿似乎能做简单的数学运算。
In a 2004 violation-of-expectation study, babies watched a movie where 5 objects fell behind a wall, followed shortly by 5 more.
在2004年的一项违反预期的研究中，婴儿观看了一部电影，其中5个物体从墙上落了下来，紧接着又有5个物体下落。
Then the wall moved off screen, revealing either 5 objects, the wrong answer, or 10 objects, the right answer.
然后将屏幕从墙上移开，答案有两个：5个物体（错误答案）或者10个物体（正确答案）。
The babies stared longer at the screen when only 5 were revealed, suggesting that they knew that 5 plus 5 should equal more than 5.
当屏幕上只显示出5个物体时，他们盯着屏幕的时间更长，这表明他们知道5加5应该大于5。
Similar studies have shown that infants as young as 2 months seem to have a rudimentary grasp of physics.
类似的研究表明，2个月大的婴儿似乎对物理学有初步的了解。
At that age, they know where a moving object should end up, even if it goes behind a barrier.
婴儿在2个月大的时候知道移动的物体应该在哪里结束，即使它穿过一个障碍物。
By 4 to 5 months, they expect unsupported objects to fall rather than hover, suggesting they are aware of the phenomenon of gravity.
在4到5个月大的时候，婴儿料到没有支撑的物体会下落而不是悬浮，这表明他们意识到了重力现象。
And at 7 months, they'll look longer at a ball that rolls up a hill than a ball that rolls down it.
在7个月大时，他们会花更长的时间看一个滚上山的球而不是滚下山的球。
Babies even seem to recognize differences between the states of matter.
婴儿甚至似乎能识别物质状态之间的差异。
In experiments, they seemed to expect liquids to flow through a grate and expect solids to stay on top.
在实验中，他们似乎料到液体会流经炉栅，而固体会留在炉栅顶部。
All this makes sense because to survive as adults, humans need to learn about the properties of the physical world around them.
所有这些都是有道理的，因为作为成年人，人类需要了解周围物质世界的特性。
And babies sure get lots of time to study how things behave,
婴儿肯定有很多时间来研究事物的行为，
since they can't, you know, do much else.
因为他们做不了太多其他的事情。
Young humans also need to learn the unspoken rules of human society and develop an understanding of things like emotion, language, and cooperation.
年轻人还需要学习人类社会的潜规则，理解情感、语言和合作这样的事情。
And that learning starts early, too.
学习从很早就开始了。
Most infants seem to pick up on emotions really early on, for example.
例如，大多数婴儿似乎很早就学会了情绪。
When scientists scanned the brains of 3 to 7 month-olds while they listened to emotional voices,
科学家们扫描3到7个月大的婴儿听情绪声音时的大脑，
they found that sad voices produced more activation in brain regions which are important for emotion processing, like the insula.
他们发现，悲伤的声音在大脑中情绪处理很重要的区域，比如脑岛，激活更多。
And well before they say their first words, babies seem to be laying down the foundations for understanding language.
在他们说出第一个单词之前，婴儿似乎已经为语言理解打下了基础。
Even at 3 or 4 months old, studies suggest babies use novel words that they hear as a way to categorize objects,
研究表明，婴儿甚至在3、4个月大的时候使用他们听到的新单词来给物体分类，
an effect that does not occur when they hear a simple tone instead.
而他们听到一个简单的音调时不会有这种效果。
And they seem to recognize and value certain social traits like collaboration.
他们似乎认识到并重视某些社会特征，比如协作。
In a 2007 study, 6 to 10 month-olds chose to reach towards a character that helped another character climb up a hill rather than one that pushed others down, indicating that they understood and preferred cooperative, or prosocial, behavior.
在2007年的一项研究中，6到10个月大的婴儿选择接触帮助另一个人爬上山的角色，而不是把其他人推下山的角色，这表明他们理解并喜欢合作或亲社会的行为。
There's even some evidence babies can get inside other people's heads.
甚至有证据表明婴儿可以进入别人的大脑。
Even though infants aren't generally considered to have theory of mind, the perception that other people have their own unique set of thoughts, feelings, and beliefs,
尽管人们通常认为，婴儿不会有心智理论——认为其他人有自己独特的想法、感觉和信念，
they do seem to make basic inferences about why other people do what they do.
他们似乎对别人行为的原因做出了基本的推论。
For example, in one study, researchers had 14 month-old infants watch as an adult turned on a light with her head.
例如，在一项研究中，研究人员让14个月大的婴儿观看成人用头开灯的过程。
The woman either had her hands free, or pretended to be cold and wrapped herself in a blanket which prevented her from using her hands as normal.
这名妇女要么双手解开，要么假装很冷，用毯子把自己裹起来，这样她就不能正常使用双手了。
When her hands were occupied, the babies were less likely to imitate her,
当她的手被占据时，婴儿不太可能模仿她，
and instead turned the light on with their hands.
而是用手把灯打开。
But when her hands were free, they followed her lead, turning the light on with their heads, too.
但是当她的手解开的时候，婴儿也跟着她学，用头打开灯。
It was as if they understood that, if her hands were occupied, she was turning the light on in a strange way because she was unable to use her hands.
好像婴儿明白，如果妇女的手被占用了就会以一种奇怪的方式打开灯，因为她无法使用她的手。
But if her hands were free, then she used her head because, for some reason, that was the best way to do it.
但是如果她的手在被解开的状况下，用她的头打开，因为某种原因，这是最好的方法。
So even though it seems like they're not doing much, long before babies can talk or even walk, they're learning a lot about the world around them every day.
所以即使婴儿看起来没有做什么，在婴儿会说话甚至走路之前很久，他们每天都在学习很多关于他们周围世界的知识。
And that's probably why it seems like they grow up all too fast.
这可能就是为什么他们长得太快的原因。
Thanks for watching this episode of SciShow Psych!
感谢收看本期心理科学秀!
And thanks especially to our patrons on Patreon.
特别感谢Patreon对我们节目的支持
We cannot overstate how important your support is to us.
你们的支持对我们而言再重要不过
Simply put, without it, this entire channel wouldn't exist.
简单地说，没有你们的帮助，整个通道就无法存在。
If you want to join our community of patrons or learn more about helping us make educational psychology videos,
如果你想加入我们的赞助人社区或者了解更多关于帮助我们制作教育心理学视频的信息，
you can head on over to Patreon.com/SciShow.
可以登陆Patreon.com/SciShow。
