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Topic: Peek-a-Boo (Read 482 times) |
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Speaker
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Peek-a-Boo
« on: Sep 15th, 2004, 11:50pm » |
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I was recently looking at some babies. Which cause me to think in the following pattern.
Babies have an innate ability to recognize faces. This has been demonstrated in some tests someplace. I do not think that they recognize a specific face, just that something is a face.
Animals and insects have different ways to conceal themselves when threatened or when hunting. One of the most effective ways is to remain motionless. I do not know of any study about this, but is seems right to me. Other ways they disguise themselves is to try and appear as something they are not.
So, when you play peek-a-boo with a baby, they hide their faces and you can make them laugh. But, have you ever heard someone say, "Oh, they think they are hidden because they cannot see us. "
So, this is my thought, that babies by covering their eyes (faces) are actually exhibiting the most effective way to conceal themselves.
This is not so effective actually, because we can see them when they are lying on a blanket on the floor. But, if they were lying on the dusty ground, covered with dust, and covered their eyes, they would look like a dusty lump, not a defensless meal. (Sorry, defensless um, ur prey...)
Any thoughts on this? Is it learned? If it is learned, why do we continue to teach it? (Or maybe we teach it because it is just a game, and not a defense mechanism.) Or, is it some deep seated instinct, developed over eons of evolution? Or something? 
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Sir Col
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Re: Peek-a-Boo
« Reply #1 on: Sep 16th, 2004, 2:17am » |
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I suspect that it is a combination of two things...
(i) limited environmental awareness
You often observe very young children, playing "hide-n-seek", will hide, say, behind a curtain with their feet protruding from beneath. They have not fully learned to see the world from someone else's perspective. Sadly, too many adults are living proof that very few of us ever learn this lesson.
(ii) an imitated social response
Part of the early pschological development is learning to interpret social signals and respond. We learn very quickly that, although there is often no logical reason for some actions, it is beneficial to replicate them. For example, a smile met with a smile, or one offering a hand to another as a greeting. Perhaps babies play along with this "peek-a-boo" game, because it generates a sense of belonging and acceptance?
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asterix
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My understanding is that very young babies have no concept that the world even exists beyond what they can see. If you take a toy the baby is interested in and move it behind something else, he will immediately look away for something else of interest instead of looking for that toy, because it no longer exists. So peekaboo is a way of teaching children that the world still exists when they can't see it. And it amuses them because it is so novel
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John_Gaughan
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Re: Peek-a-Boo
« Reply #3 on: Sep 21st, 2004, 7:53am » |
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This might explain why my cat tries to hide in boxes half his size. He loves it when nobody can see him, the only problem is he eats too much 
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Speaker
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Re: Peek-a-Boo
« Reply #4 on: Sep 24th, 2004, 2:00am » |
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Thanks for posting, I am not ignoring, just do not have time to add anything constructive.
I remember learning (someplace and somewhen) that humans do not have instincts or instinctive reactions. This was somehow related to the fact that we were equipped with "Reason." Is this true?
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EZ_Lonny
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Re: Peek-a-Boo
« Reply #5 on: Sep 24th, 2004, 2:15am » |
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Reason is something that needs developping.
Some psycholgist believe in "tabula rasa". So to start with there is no reason only sentiment and feelings of thirst, hunger and fatigue.
Babies start crying when they are hungry because of a feeling of incapability to creat its own meal. Crying is a alarm to the creature near the baby's bed hoping the message gets through. Its instinct tells to cry in need. After a while it turns into a Pavlov-related issue. The baby learns that crying gives a reaction to the parent, causing attention and fullfillment of the baby's wish. (I mean that the parent is "Pavlovs Dog" and the baby is "Pavlov")
Offcourse you could say that the baby is inprinted with reason to cry in need. That just a matter of interpretation.
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towr
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Re: Peek-a-Boo
« Reply #6 on: Sep 24th, 2004, 3:30am » |
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on Sep 24th, 2004, 2:00am, Speaker wrote:| I remember learning (someplace and somewhen) that humans do not have instincts or instinctive reactions. This was somehow related to the fact that we were equipped with "Reason." Is this true? |
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The first thing you ought to clear up is what kind of instincts you're talking about.
Quote:Main Entry: 1in·stinct
Pronunciation: 'in-"sti[ng](k)t
Function: noun
Etymology: Middle English, from Latin instinctus impulse, from instinguere to incite; akin to Latin instigare to instigate
1 : a natural or inherent aptitude, impulse, or capacity <had an instinct for the right word>
2 a : a largely inheritable and unalterable tendency of an organism to make a complex and specific response to environmental stimuli without involving reason b : behavior that is mediated by reactions below the conscious level |
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If we start with 2b), people certainly have those, for example if people burn their hand they'll instinctively pull it back.
2a), I'd say the drive for procreation would fall under this one, and people certainly have been doing that a lot for centuries..
And then there's 1), this one is a bit harder I think. You might say people have a natural asptitude for music or language or math, or whatever. But those are things that only manifest themselves after years, and might have easily enough been socially engrained, rather than 'natural' (unless you stretch that concept out of proportion). On the other had you could say nearly all people have a natural aptitude for learning a language, we pretty much all learn to talk to each other. You might even go as far to say we have a natural aptitude, impulse, capacity to reason.. (Though on observation, you'd often be inclined to think many people lack the impulse)
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John_Gaughan
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Re: Peek-a-Boo
« Reply #7 on: Sep 24th, 2004, 6:31am » |
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Instinct, reason... topics that seem to come up quite a bit in the non-riddle portion of this forum.
Anyway, while humans may not have instincts similar to other animals, we do have it. I always thought so, but one event made me know so. When my son was born, not even fifteen minutes old, he knew how to do two things -- cry and breastfeed. Crying is arguable because it is possible to explain it as a type of exhaling, but he knew exactly what to do when given the opportunity to breastfeed and wasted no time.
Reason is also innate to our nature, but I think we have more control over it. We can chose to act irrationally, and we can also cultivate reason and make conscious efforts to let it guide our actions.
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