article_snippet.sent: But 11-month-old babies have already mastered the fundamentals of physics.
article_snippet.sent: Babies might be smarter than we had previously thought and can understand complex social situations from the age of just 13 months old.
article_snippet.sent: A study by psychologists at the University of Missouri has found that infants are able to comprehend what constitutes bullying, friendship and what it means to be a bystander.
article_snippet.sent: In an experiment with puppets infants are able to comprehend what constitutes bullying, friendship and what it means to be a bystander responded to different scenarios in a way that suggested infants are able to comprehend what constitutes bullying, friendship and what it means to be a bystander were more engaged than had been expected.
article_snippet.sent: The findings indicated the newborns had ‘strong feelings about how people should deal with a character who hits others’, the researchers said.
article_snippet.sent: This, say the US researchers, suggests that babies learn from the unexpected, something that is important in a world in which we are constantly bombarded with information.
article_snippet.sent: For young learners, the world is an incredibly complex place filled with dynamic stimuli.
article_snippet.sent: How do learners know what to focus on and what to learn more about and what to ignore?
article_snippet.sent: ‘Our research suggests that infants use what infants already know about the world to form predictions.
article_snippet.sent: When these predictions are shown to be wrong, infants use this as a special opportunity for learning.
article_snippet.sent: ‘When babies are surprised, babies learn much better, as though babies are taking the occasion to try to figure something out about babies world.
article_snippet.sent: However, previous studies have shown that much younger babies and newborn animals have surprising amounts of knowledge about maths and physics, including whether an object should be able to pass through a solid wall.
article_snippet.sent: Lead author Aimee Stahl said that young babies are ‘remarkably sophisticated thinkers’.
article_snippet.sent: It’s easy to look at a baby and see a blank slate but actually babies have rich, sophisticated expectations about the world.
article_snippet.sent: Infants are not only equipped with core knowledge about fundamental aspects of the world but, from early in Infants lives, Infants harness this knowledge to empower new learning.
highlights_snippet.sent: 11 month old infants were surprised when objects defied 11 month old infants expectations .
  