Ted Talk What Do Babies Think Summary

Ted Talk: “What do babies think?” The ted talk that was examined was “What do babies think” with speaker Alison Gopnik. This ted talk discussed an overview of how babies actually think and process the world around them. The speaker starts by saying that babies in the past have been thought to be irrational, illogical and unable to determine and understand cause and effect. But babies actually tend to be better thinkers that most adults. Babies could actually be thought as the world's smartest scientists, critical thinker and problem solvers. It's not just absent random thoughts occurring in a baby’s head, it's most likely thoughts about what another baby is thinking. Babies are also aware of those around them and how they feel
The text material backs up some of the statements made by the speaker that babies have a thought process even when they can communicate yet. The fact that they have the ability to learn and remember things before language is developed, is what could back up that babies have can have a complex way of thinking. One could also bring up nature versus nurture when discussing infant development. The way a baby thinks, learns and remembers can easily be influenced by the environment the baby is in. What parents do and say in front of the child can influence how the baby behaves or thinks he/she is suppose to behave. I do agree with majority of the speaker’s argument that there is a lot more going on in a baby’s head than people think. I agree because of experiments explained in the text material and in the ted talk and that they support her claims. Some of the assumptions the author makes are that baby’s have the ability to think and process at such an early stage in development, that infants and children do use conditional probability when doing certain tasks, and that infants and children are able to learn and retain many things without knowing it. The assumptions and points made are supported by the experiment stated earlier in the ted