Watching and responding – why your face is so fascinating to your baby

Although your baby’s vision isn't fully developed at birth – what they see is blurry – they are likely to prefer looking at faces.^[1] Your baby’s interest in people is the starting point for interaction and, as they develop, they will not only watch you but also respond when you look at them, smile or speak. 

Watching and learning...

Watching you and other people around them contributes to their social understanding as well as to the development of language. You will notice similar skills in the social-emotional and language streams as your baby’s learning and development in these streams is closely linked.  

Imitation or spontaneous responses?

Some studies have suggested that very young babies imitate facial expressions and hand gestures.^[2] However, more recent studies have failed to replicate the results of these early studies^[3] and there is some debate about when a baby’s ability to imitate movements and expressions develops.  

It is suggested that the ability to imitate is learnt after birth rather than being an innate ability that is present from birth.^[4] We know that imitation is an important part of social and language development, that your newborn baby will be interested in faces and they are likely to move their mouths and stick out their tongue. Perhaps the discussion about if their movements are imitations or simply spontaneous responses is one that we can leave to the scientists for now.

Your mutual interest will lead to lovely interactions!

What we do know is, your baby will learn language through interactions with the people around them, linked to the things that interest them. When you respond to your baby’s interest in you and your face, you give them the chance to enjoy interaction which will lead to more interactions and ultimately conversations.  

In the next few months, your baby will explore the sounds that they can make, they will continue to be interested in you and the people around them and they will find different ways to initiate interactions, including smiling, moving and making noises. 

References:

[1] Addyman, C (2020) The laughing baby: The extraordinary science behind what makes babies happy.  London: Unbound.  

[2] Meltzoff, A. and Morre, K (1977) Imitation of facial and manual gestures by human neonates. Science 198, 75-78. 

[3] Oostenbroek J, Suddendorf T, Nielsen M, Redshaw J, Kennedy-Costantini S, Davis J, Slaughter V (2016). Comprehensive longitudinal study challenges the existence of neonatal imitation in humans. Current Biology, 26, 1334–1338. 

[4] Heyes (2016). Imitation not in our genes. Current biology. 26 R408-R431.  Available at: Imitation: Not in Our Genes | Elsevier Enhanced Reader (Accessed 5th October 2021).