
What Babies Know About Physics and Foreign Languages - ontouchstart
http://nytimes.com/2016/07/31/opinion/sunday/what-babies-know-about-physics-and-foreign-languages.html
======
woodandsteel
Great article. The author, Alison Gopnik, also has two very interesting books,
The Scientist in the Crib and The Philosopher in the Crib.

She's right about our education system. As John Taylor Gotti explains, it was
designed in the nineteenth century to produce factory workers who would not
think for themselves, but just take orders. But what we need today and
tomorrow is people who will learn on their own initiative and figure out
intelligent solutions (like open source software developers), and so we need
an educational system that will encourage that sort of behavior. What Gopnik
is saying that this is something natural for children, if we put them in the
right circumstances.

~~~
dredmorbius
She's also Alan Gopnik's sister, there another few intellectual sibs, all
sharing mother Myrna Gopnik, emerita linguistics prof at McGill.

[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myrna_Gopnik](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myrna_Gopnik)

------
ontouchstart
Regarding physics intuition, it reminds me this short video clip by Richard
Feynman on how his father "taught" him that deeper observation reveals Physics
intuition of a more basic concept of "inertia".

[https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Zjm8JeDKvdc](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Zjm8JeDKvdc)

------
YeGoblynQueenne
>> The babies seemed to figure out that when the experimenter’s arms were
wrapped up, she couldn’t use her hands, and that must have been why she had
used her head instead. So when it was the babies’ turn they took the easy
route and tapped the box with their hands.

Or maybe the babies had just completely forgot about the experimenter and his
wrapped-up hands and didn't even "tap" the box but more like "bumped into" it
hands-first. The difference between a "tap with intent" and a "bump without
intent" or even a "tap without specific intent other than basic curiosity" is
probably not even possible to measure.

That's why I find it very hard to trust experiments like this: they're
supposed to tell us something about the way babies think but we can't actually
check we got the right end of the stick. They're babies, so we can't just ask
them. If we asked adults to do the same thing we wouldn't learn anything new
either. So what's the point?

The result is that researchers get into this elaborate dance with their
subjects trying to set things up so there's no plausible alternative
explanation than what the research is trying to show- but a) there always is
and b) it's pretty damn annoying to what lengths the research goes to avoid
admitting (a).

Also, once I find one such transgression in an article I then find it very
hard to read through with any shred of trust to the writer.

~~~
jacinda
Actually, they have a control in place in the study itself and they could
additionally have compared against the results from the 1988 study where all
the experimenters hands were free.

Sometimes the experimenter had their hands free and other times they did not.
When the experimenter had their hands free and tapped the box with their
forehead, the babies imitated the head action over 60% of the time. When the
experimenter had their hands bound, the babies imitated the head action only
20% of the time.

To me that's a big enough difference that the babies didn't just accidentally
tap without specific intent.

Actual write-up in Nature (which was linked to in the article):
[http://www.nature.com/articles/415755a.epdf](http://www.nature.com/articles/415755a.epdf)

~~~
YeGoblynQueenne
>> Actual write-up in Nature (which was linked to in the article):

Yeah, about that:

 _79% of them chose not to imitate here because their own hands were free,
presumably concluding that the head action was the most rational.

Whether they re-enacted the head action or not, all infants who watched the
adult perform under both conditions still used the hand action._

See what I mean? Who knows _why_ 79% of babies chose to imitate the
researcher? The research assumes it was "because their own hands were free" \-
but isn't that what it's trying to prove in the first place? And where does
that conclusion, about rationality, comes from? Certainly not something that
the babies indicated, but rather the researchers' interpretation of the
actions of the babies. This is... it's kind of like anthropomorphising
animals. There's absolutely no reson to assume that babies where behaving
rationally, or irrationally. They could just be moving completely at random,
but the researchers go ahead and assign motives to them and "rationality" as
well. What the hell!

And like the second paragraph says, all infants used their hands _anyway_. At
that point it's obvious that the head action is just a random thing that some
babies do anyway. Because if they know they can turn the light on with their
hands, why would they use their heads _also_? If they don't know they can turn
the light on with their hands, then how can they know they can turn it on with
their heads? This just doesn't make any sense.

~~~
Cogito
It feels like you are shifting the goalposts here, but I potentially
misunderstand your original objections.

In your first comment, you say that "maybe the babies had just completely
forgot about the experimenter and his wrapped-up hands and didn't even "tap"
the box but more like "bumped into" it hands-first". That is, we can't judge
the intent of the babies _and so we can 't determine why they use their hands
instead of heads_.

I agree that we can't ask babies what their intent is and have them verbalise
the response, but that is not the same thing as being unable to determine
intent. Indeed, asking and listening to a response is just one form of setting
up an experiment and evaluating the response. Of course there may be reasons
we can't think of, but the scientific method gives us a framework to explore
those ideas.

Hypothesis: babies can recognise constraints upon action when observing
action. When mimicking this action later, if not under the same constraint,
the babies will modify the action in order to achieve the outcome of the
action as simply as possible.

The null hypothesis here would be every baby performing the same action
regardless of constraints observed.

So, if after seeing the button pusher with hands tied, and at other times
without hands tied (using different babies in each case of course), we would
expect to see no difference in how the babies pushed the button. If they were
simply "bumping into" the button with their hands, they would do so an
equivalent number of times in each group of babies. Assuming everything else
was controlled for (which we can't know for certain, but is reasonable to
assume) then the hypothesis holds.

If the babies were "moving completely at random" we would expect to see
completely different outcomes then what were observed.

Your objection about rationality is probably more about scope or context of
definition. The researchers seem to be using 'rational' as a shorthand for
'understands constraints and can remove them in order to achieve the desired
outcome'.

For example, if the observed uses their head to push the button and their
hands are not tied, it is 'rational' to believe that the head _must_ be used
to push the button. If the hands are tied, however, it is more 'rational' to
believe that the head is being used _because_ the hands are tied - the
constraint is recognised.

Finally the second paragraph says "all infants who watched the adult perform
under both conditions" not "all infants". That is, there was a group of babies
shown both ways to push the button, and those babies chose to use their hands
every time and not their heads.

~~~
YeGoblynQueenne
>> It feels like you are shifting the goalposts here, but I potentially
misunderstand your original objections.

I have several objectsions about this and similar studies, so I may sound like
I'm changing the subject, sorry about that. I'm not sure where I did that, but
it's not my intention to shift the goalposts, I feel I'm being consistent.

>> The null hypothesis here would be every baby performing the same action
regardless of constraints observed.

That's just not a valid null hypothesis. Not when you're dealing with living
things, particularly human beings, even if they're babies. There's absolutely
nothing to say what a person, even a baby, will do in a certain situation. We
are not automata, or if we are some sort of automaton we are a type of
automaton that is too complex for us to understand and predict.

In that sense I don't see how there can even be a valid null hypothesis. We
don't even know what to expect in the first place, so what are we comparing
some specific observation to?

The idea is that the study has "controls", but note we're not even given the
numbers of the subjects the experiment involved. Even the bar chart on the
right has percentages rather than numbers- why? Well, because it probably
involved a dozen subjects or so. A couple of dozen? Probably not more than
that.

We're talking about tiny, tiny numbers here. There's not really enough to
seriously talk about "controls". And my intuition is that if the study was
done on, say, a few hundred babies, results supporting the researchers'
conclusions would dissolve into thin air. But- who knows?

As to the main hypothesis:

>> Hypothesis: babies can recognise constraints upon action when observing
action.

Why is that a valid hypothesis to state in the first place? It's making some
assumptions about the baby's mind, specifically that it's the same kind of
mind, in the same kind of context, as that of the person who stated the
hypothesis. Well- that sort of assumption is something that has to be tested
in the first place. We can't just hand-wave that fundamental question away
with a "duh, it's a human baby so".

Social sciences have a tendency to make gigantic leaps of reasoning like that,
and bridge the gap between observed behaviours with assumptions and common
sense, or other social scientists' theories. There are so many things that is
probably impossible to evern know for sure about our minds, no matter how much
science we throw at them, or at the very least it will takes us generations
upon generations of painstaking research to figure out- yet, a lot of the
people who study minds and behaviour will gladly take them for granted and
publish a paper taking them for granted, then others will cite that paper,
build upon its baseless assumptions and add their own on top. That's not
science- that's turtles all the way down.

>> there was a group of babies shown both ways to push the button, and those
babies chose to use their hands every time and not their heads.

I do think that's what I meant but even so- what does that tell us? Who says
that's not what should be expected? We're back to forming a valid null
hypothesis, and I don't see how that is established.

~~~
Thiez
> There's absolutely nothing to say what a person, even a baby, will do in a
> certain situation.

Perhaps not for a single individual in a single situation, but on average
humans are quite predictable, and not the unique little snowflakes you make
them out to be. If someone slaps you in the face, odds are you will be angry,
frightened, surprised, or some combination thereof. You're probably not going
to hug that person and invite them over for dinner. Of course there are 6
billion people on this earth, so there may be someone out there who will start
singing when slapped, but statistically that person doesn't exist.

> We are not automata, or if we are some sort of automaton we are a type of
> automaton that is too complex for us to understand and predict.

Understanding the circumstances, thoughts, and emotional state of others is
required for empathy. If humans were truly too complex for other humans to
understand and predict, empathy could not exist. And if people were unable to
predict others, it would be impossible to troll people on the internet.

> In that sense I don't see how there can even be a valid null hypothesis. We
> don't even know what to expect in the first place, so what are we comparing
> some specific observation to?

By that logic there can never by a null hypothesis for any experiment. The
world is a big and complex place, and there is pretty strong evidence that
randomness plays a big role at the smallest scales that we currently
understand. Which direction will this rock go when I drop it? Will it even
move at all? Who knows! Through the power of quantum teleportation it could
suddenly appear anywhere.

> The idea is that the study has "controls", but note we're not even given the
> numbers of the subjects the experiment involved.

Why are you worrying about the number of subjects? If human behavior cannot be
predicted at all, we wouldn't really expect to see a pattern no matter how
many subjects participate in the study, would we?

> Even the bar chart on the right has percentages rather than numbers- why?
> Well, because it probably involved a dozen subjects or so. A couple of
> dozen? Probably not more than that.

If you have a couple of dozen subjects, observing something happening less
than 20% of the time in one group and more than 60% of the time in the other
is actually pretty significant. You don't need hundreds of subjects when the
difference is that big. [This
page]([http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v415/n6873/fig_tab/4157...](http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v415/n6873/fig_tab/415755a_F1.html#figure-
title)) seems to suggest that one group had 14 participants, and the other 13.
I suppose that technically qualifies as "couple of dozen".

> We're talking about tiny, tiny numbers here. There's not really enough to
> seriously talk about "controls". And my intuition is that if the study was
> done on, say, a few hundred babies, results supporting the researchers'
> conclusions would dissolve into thin air. But- who knows?

I'm sure researchers everywhere would absolutely _love_ to have hundreds of
people participate in all their studies. But that's expensive. Let's imagine a
world where this study was done on 200 babies. People in that world would
still complain about this study! Instead of "27 subjects? Surely that is too
few to conclude anything!" we would hear "How dare those researchers waste a
million dollars to investigate how often babies smash stuff with their head!".
Imagine the study was unable to show any result, the outrage would be
terrible.

> Why is that a valid hypothesis to state in the first place? It's making some
> assumptions about the baby's mind, specifically that it's the same kind of
> mind, in the same kind of context, as that of the person who stated the
> hypothesis. Well- that sort of assumption is something that has to be tested
> in the first place.

I fail to see your objection here. The hypothesis would make sense if the
subjects were adults. It would also make sense for children. So at what age
does it stop making sense? How young does someone have to be before we can no
longer make assumptions about their mind? How would we even know without
experiments such as the very one you are now criticizing? As someone who used
to own a dog I think the hypothesis would even make sense not just for humans
but also for some social animals.

> We can't just hand-wave that fundamental question away with a "duh, it's a
> human baby so".

Well if I had to choose between "the mind of a human baby functions similarly
to the mind of a human adult" and "the mind of a human baby is completely
alien and nothing like that of a human adult" I think Occam's razor favors the
former. Regardless, your approach leads to some type of analysis paralysis: we
can't perform a study without a hypothesis, and we don't have enough data to
form a hypothesis.

> Social sciences have a tendency to make gigantic leaps of reasoning like
> that, and bridge the gap between observed behaviours with assumptions and
> common sense, or other social scientists' theories.

So in that respect it's a lot like the non-social sciences?

> There are so many things that is probably impossible to evern know for sure
> about our minds, no matter how much science we throw at them, or at the very
> least it will takes us generations upon generations of painstaking research
> to figure out-

That seems like a giant leap of reasoning of the same type that you like to
criticize the social scientists for. Do you at least have a study that vaguely
supports this theory?

> yet, a lot of the people who study minds and behaviour will gladly take them
> for granted and publish a paper taking them for granted, then others will
> cite that paper, build upon its baseless assumptions and add their own on
> top.

That sounds a lot like science works in practice.

> That's not science- that's turtles all the way down.

Well there's only so far you can build on a false theory before you notice
that your data doesn't make any sense.

> I do think that's what I meant but even so- what does that tell us? Who says
> that's not what should be expected? We're back to forming a valid null
> hypothesis, and I don't see how that is established.

I suspect that is primarily because you're being deliberately obtuse because
of your dislike for the social sciences.

------
thesumofall
The title is a bit misleading - it's basically about how babies/kids learn by
observation and that we should give them more opportunity to
observe/experiment rather than tell them how the world works

~~~
ontouchstart
This is the "foreign language" part of the story.

> In 2002 Gyorgy Gergely, Harold Bekkering and Ildiko Kiraly did a different
> version of this study. Sometimes the experimenters’ arms were wrapped in a
> blanket when she tapped her forehead on the box. The babies seemed to figure
> out that when the experimenter’s arms were wrapped up, she couldn’t use her
> hands, and that must have been why she had used her head instead. So when it
> was the babies’ turn they took the easy route and tapped the box with their
> hands.

> In 2013 David Buttelmann and his colleagues did yet another version. First,
> the babies heard the experimenter speak the same language they did or a
> different one. Then the experimenter tapped her head on the box. When she
> had spoken the same language, the babies were more likely to tap the box
> with their foreheads; when she spoke a different language they were more
> likely to use their hands.

> In other words, babies don’t copy mindlessly — they take note of who you are
> and why you act.

~~~
posterboy
might also be that a new language takes too much attention to focus on the
visual. Even, lip-reading would take the visual focus.

~~~
mikekchar
One of the interesting things I learned teaching foreign languages is that
people only remember things that they understand. That makes intuitive sense,
but what I found most interesting is that if someone doesn't understand
something, they will often forget that it ever happened.

For example, I once asked my students to bring in their textbook for the next
class. I was speaking English (foreign language for the students). Not one
student in the 30 brought their textbook the next day. The weird thing is that
not one of the students even remembered me saying something that they didn't
understand. I've done a seminar where I demonstrate this effect. I say
something in Japanese to an English speaking audience. I even make a remark
about it. 20 minutes later I ask if anyone remembers me saying something in
Japanese. Most people do not. Even after only 20 minutes people completely
filter out things that don't make sense to them. When I saw this happening, I
immediately found some scientific papers describing the effect. Unfortunately
I seem to have lost all my notes so I don't have links handy any more :-(

So, without knowing more, my guess is that the babies get confused with the
foreign language and subsequently forget the whole episode.

BTW, knowing this dramatically improved my teaching. If you realise that
students who don't understand something in class will actually forget the
entire class, you realise how important it is to probe understanding _for
every person in the class_.

And just to get a plug in because people often complain about the quality of
education that their children get. I only taught for 5 years, but if there was
one thing that I would concentrate on to improve education it's to reduce
class sizes. I had classes of 43 (!) most of the time I was teaching. I had
fifty minute classes. You can do the math to see how much time I had to help
each student individually. In my last year, I restructured my classes reducing
my "instruction" time (where I explain things) to 5 minutes a class. I spent
the rest of the class probing and evaluating comprehension. Test scores
improved dramatically across the board.

------
themartorana
I don't mean to be flip, but this is obvious to anyone that has kid(s).
Watching them observe and test and learn (and giving them the space to do so)
is one of the great joys of my life.

That said, I also see how once children reach a certain age, some parents to
become obsessed with the speed of learning, and try to introduce instructed
learning with the hope it will work faster, better, and teach them to read
faster, etc.

This is a good article that gently encourages allowing children continued
space to learn through observation and experimentation with their environment
and surroundings. There is a place for instructed learning, but it is not the
only way of learning, and for younger children at least, definitely not the
most important.

------
dschiptsov
Literally absolutely nothing.

Human (and any other) brain has been shaped by evolutionary forces according
to constrains and features of the shared environment (gravitation, light,
sound, day/night changes, climate, etc) and has evolved machinery to pick up
any language from the shared social environment. So-called hard-wired
"knowledge" is just a structure of neurons in specialized areas of the brain,
shaped by evolution (selection on random mutations) which reflects the
environment.

~~~
gnaritas
> Literally absolutely nothing.

That position is known as the blank slate and is no longer taken seriously
among scientists. Language is an instinct that springs forth even when there
is no language to pick up from the environment. What you think you know is
incorrect.

~~~
dschiptsov
I said in the comment above that "knowledge" is represented as a structure of
specialized areas of the brain - stored procedures, if you wish, but the
system needs to be "trained" by the spoken (or signed) language from the
shared environment.

The "machinery" probably has notions of a thing, a process, and an attribute,
because it reflects characteristics of shared physical environment and every
human language has nouns, verbs and adjectives. There are also notions of time
and space, due to serialized input of sense organs and self-centered nature of
our perception.

Evolved, highly-specialized machinery of the brain's specialized areas
reflects major characteristics of the shared environment available to it
through the sense organs. There is nothing more than that. No other
"knowledge".

~~~
gnaritas
That's quite a lot of something for "literally absolutely nothing".

