What is my child thinking?What is my child thinking?
All In The Mind
We used to believe that babies and young children had irrational and naive thinking skills. Developments in psychology and neuroscience now reveal that infants are actually smarter, more thoughtful, and have a different consciousness to adults. Children’s exploratory and creative style of thinking may even inform improved AI design.
28:52•2 Feb 2020
Inside the Brilliant, Messy Mind of a Child
Episode Overview
- Babies and toddlers show early understanding that other people can want different things, as shown in the broccoli versus crackers experiment.
- Young children behave like scientists, using statistics and causal reasoning to work out how things function, sometimes outperforming adults.
- Children’s playful experimentation and curiosity offer clues for designing smarter, curiosity-driven artificial intelligence.
- Extended human childhood provides a protected period for broad exploration, creativity and learning rather than immediate practical success.
- Play-based, inquiry-focused early education aligns more closely with how young children actually learn than rigid, test-driven approaches.
“"I think that what it's like to be a baby is it's like being in love in Paris for the first time after you've had four double espressos."”
What is going on inside a young child’s mind? This episode of All In The Mind takes that question seriously, with science, humour and a lot of childlike curiosity. Science journalist and host Lynne Malcolm talks with Professor Alison Gopnik from the University of California, Berkeley, whose research suggests that babies are far from blank slates. Instead, they behave like little scientists, forming theories, running experiments and using statistics to figure out how the world works.
You’ll hear about the famous broccoli-versus-crackers experiment, where toddlers learn that other people can want something different from them – and kindly hand over the food the adult actually likes. Gopnik explains that even very young children can handle probabilities and abstract ideas using a playful “blicket machine” that lights up only with certain blocks. In some tasks, children even outperform adults, precisely because they’re more open, messy and experimental in their thinking.
Alongside the lab work, there’s gorgeous audio of three-year-old Finn chatting with his dad, ABC science journalist Joel Werner, about foxes, trolls, space and aliens. Their “troll detector” game and space talk perfectly show the kind of wild, exploratory thinking Gopnik studies.
The conversation stretches into big territory: how children’s brains might inspire better artificial intelligence, why childhood is an extended period of protected exploration, and how school and childcare might work better if they leaned into play, curiosity and creativity rather than early testing. Gopnik also reflects on what adults can learn from kids: seeking out new experiences, giving ourselves safe spaces to play with ideas, and even just spending more time with young children.
As she memorably puts it, “what it's like to be a baby is it's like being in love in Paris for the first time after you've had four double espressos.” If you’ve ever looked at a child and wondered “what on earth are they thinking?”, this conversation gives you plenty to mull over.
Do you want to link to this podcast?
Get the buttons here!
More From This Show
The latest episodes from the same podcast.