Study: Infants connect spatial positions with social rankings
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Even infants can recognize who is at the top of the pecking order, according to a study.
Researchers from Kyoto University and Kyushu University said their test showed that babies know that people in physically higher positions tend to be superior to those below them, a finding that could help to better understand social mechanisms.
According to Yusuke Moriguchi, an associate professor of developmental psychology at Kyoto University, people around the world regard those at higher spatial positions as being greater or superior. Peasants bow to kings and queens. Political leaders give speeches on podiums above the masses.
Various nations have linguistic expressions that connect superior spatial positions with social relationships, so infants were believed to learn social rankings through language acquisition processes.
The scientists created a video showing two characters on a podium, with the presumed winner at the highest spot.
That was followed by two versions of the two characters competing for an object. In one video, the character in the higher position on the podium wins the contest. The other video portrays the lower counterpart as the victor.
The two videos were shown to 18 male and female babies aged 12 to 16 months. The order of the videos shown was random, and the movements of the children’s eyes were recorded.
According to the results, the subjects watched the monitor for 10 seconds on average after the upper character wins in the video.
In contrast, the footage showing the lower character winning continued attracting the children’s attention for 16 seconds.
The infants watched the latter video longer because it went against their expectations that the upper character should win, according to the team.
“Infants may have acquired the ability by observing the behavior of their parents and others, not by learning a language, or the ability may be innate,” Moriguchi said. “We will continue research to look into the possibilities.”
The findings were published in the British scientific journal Proceedings of the Royal Society.
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