Child psychology: what are babies smiling at?

gaiscioch

OK, so when you have a baby in your arms and they start smiling and then laughing while looking at the (blank!) wall, what on earth is going on? An elderly woman said to me that they see shadows and things adults don't but she could have just been acting the rogue with me.

I googled and came across this enlightening article, Why do babies smile: not necessarily because they're happy, where the author argues babies smile because they see it results in positive responses from adults and they want to be accepted (anybody disagree with that?) but I can't actually find an answer for this more "being entertained by the blank wall" type baby smiling and giggling. Have any studies been done on this? Thanks.

Labarbapostiza

gaiscioch wrote: »

OK, so when you have a baby in your arms and they start smiling and then laughing while looking at the (blank!) wall, what on earth is going on? An elderly woman said to me that they see shadows and things adults don't but she could have just been acting the rogue with me.

It depends on a few things. Very young babies can't see anything. They're blind for the first few weeks, and their vision is still upside down. But they respond well to sound. Babies can hear their mother from the womb.

Human contact also makes them happy. Babies need to be held.

Babies, once they're old enough to see things, look at different things to adults. Adults tune most of their environment out. Any adult might not notice that a blank wall is not exactly blank, and they're may be shadows and colours moving across it, that a baby might find very amusing.

tayto lover

I was always told they smile when they have wind.

Reoil

tayto lover wrote: »

I was always told they smile when they have wind.

Strange, I smile when I pass wind.

Is this my name?

To answer the question, I think you need to first ask; What are the responsive, interactive, intellectual capabilities of an infant? I think it comes down to, whether or not humans are born with natural instinctual facial reactions, or if a reaction is developed through learned positive feedback reactions of the individual circumstantial interactions. I'd say it seems most likely its natural instinctual reactions, simply considering they’re such a vastly common, universal reactions, regardless of culture, upbringing, and ultimately any circumstantial individual environmental influences.
Based on that assumption, babies are smiling as an emotional response to the feeling of happiness, rather than because they've learned it causes positive reaction feedback. But this would only be after the point in which a babies brain has developed to the point that it has the capability of processing basic emotions as a result of external sensual interactions. So, before a babies brain has developed for emotional response, smiling would likely be a random facial formation. after they have developed, the majority of the time would likely be as a result of feeling enjoyment. This feeling would be quite basic and primitive in its triggers as a cause, piloted by the limited intellectual interpretations. Therefore -of course- they would likely smile as a result of feeling happy from basic fundamental necessities being met, or otherwise randomly from random muscle movement.