Alison Gopnik: What do babies think?

http://www.ted.com "Babies and young children are like the R&D division of the human species," says psychologist Alison Gopnik. Her research explores the sophisticated intelligence-gathering and decision-making that babies are really doing when they play.

TEDTalks is a daily video podcast of the best talks and performances from the TED Conference, where the world's leading thinkers and doers give the talk of their lives in 18 minutes. Featured speakers have included Al Gore on climate change, Philippe Starck on design, Jill Bolte Taylor on observing her own stroke, Nicholas Negroponte on One Laptop per Child, Jane Goodall on chimpanzees, Bill Gates on malaria and mosquitoes, Pattie Maes on the "Sixth Sense" wearable tech, and "Lost" producer JJ Abrams on the allure of mystery. TED stands for Technology, Entertainment, Design, and TEDTalks cover these topics as well as science, business, development and the arts. Closed captions and translated subtitles in a variety of languages are now available on TED.com, at http://www.ted.com/translate.

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[Mynnia]

I'm like a baby...And in the US you get RItalin to "cure" it.

[aHmEDbainELnas]

She had like three accents, confused the hell out of me, was she speaking with an American, Canadian or British accent?

[DSBrekus]

@moielbashir (sorry in advance for replying to three month old comment) Well I think you are right for the wrong reasons, in part. It's true that babies minds are more open and malleable and that their abilities get reduced as the develop. However the main reason for this is practical, babies only need to distinguish sounds in the language they hear, they only need to distinguish the kinds of faces they actually see around them, this is an evolutionary and efficient process.

[anerbenartzi]

She says the babies learned something between 15 and 18 months of age. But I think it's more likely that they developed the ability due to how a human develops from birth. This is very different from learning. It's like saying I learned how to have teeth between 12 and 14 months.

[CymroGoch]

@aHmEDbainELnas There was absolutely no British there whatsoever. Jesus Christ, Americans are so bad at accents.

[Gossiptgirl]

@aHmEDbainELnas I'm half asleep and I thought I was imagining the different accidents! Thought I was going crazy...

[TahaNasserTV]

I'm not really sure what the massive fuss with the accents is all about. Clearly she's lived in multiple places or with people with different accents. Having a weird mix of accents is common in people with that kind of history. Is that really so difficult to conceive of?

[br33ck]

Interesting stuff here for expecting parents. Very bizarre accent though. As if she's talking to idiots. Pretty annoying, especially considering her audience at the TED conference. She must be horrible in person. I feel for the poor bastard who married her.

[chulritti]

@qigong1001

that it had to poop and you were in the way

[moielbashir]

A child's brain is still fresh and hasn't been ruined or shaped by society, that is why most adults' ideas are very limited. Children are also very creative but that is taken from them as they grow up because of the fear of being judged and all the media. It is a shame .

[qigong1001]

@aHmEDbainELnas Elitist accent. Its Ted, you know.