science New autism & ADHD research project at Birkbeck Babylab We are starting a new study at Birkbeck Babylab. We are writing to share some exciting news with you. We are launching our next phase of the Babysibs study called STAARS (Studying Autism and ADHD Risk in Siblings) to understand the early development of infants at risk for developmental disorders
science Javier Elkin's Pocket Smile app Some research for grown ups. Pocket Smile is part of my PhD project at the UCL Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience, exploring if looking at smiling faces throughout the day can increase happiness! Have you ever noticed how many smiles are started by other smiles? Just like yawning, smiling is contagious.
video Dog and toddler with Down's syndrome make friends. As I speculated in the previous post, most laughter is social and the reason that babies find dogs so funny is because dogs are extremely social creatures. This video illustrates the point beautifully: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JA8VJh0UJtg Hernan has Down Syndrome and he does not like to
video Your Babies #019: Babies think dogs are funnier than cats. As the internet clearly shows, people think that cats are way funnier than dogs. But not if you are a baby. The evidence is in and, apart from the occasional fan of goats, babies think dogs are hilarious. Our latest video of baby Lukas adds to the data. Naturally, as
science Experimenting With Babies: Baby science for you to try at home Here's a new book, published today, that might interest readers of this blog: Experimenting With Babies: 50 Science Projects You Can Perform on Your Kid shows parents how to recreate landmark scientific studies on cognitive, motor, social and behavioral development — using their own bundles of joy as the
science The physics of babies As I've said before every baby is a scientist. It might also be true that every scientist that becomes a parent becomes a baby scientist. This was certainly true for Philip Shemella, a computational physicist working in Zurich. When his baby daughter Heidi was born he became a
video Your Babies #018: Caleb sharing a joke with mummy, daddy and an octopus Here we see baby Caleb laughing as his mummy playfully attacks him with a funny blue octopus. Watch the film and you will see that although the laughs start with each octopus attack, it is not the octopus who is funny. It's mummy. Caleb looks briefly at the
science Citizen Scientists Decode Meaning, Memory and Laughter - SciAm Mind Scientific American Mind have a guest blog post from Joshua Hartshorne about citizen science. That is, science where researcher recruit 'enthusiastic amateurs' online as research collaborators. He points out that cognitive scientists have been doing this a long time and covers a range of recent projects including ours.
science The power of play – Peter Gray All young mammals spend most of their time playing. Evolutionary psychologist Peter Gray believes that this supports the clearly supports the venerable idea that play provides very important preparation for adult life. But what about young humans? With the most to learn, we would seem to need the most play.
video Your Babies #017: Who's copying who? For new parents and their babies, there is a wonderful moment when the baby realises he or she has the power to make mummy and daddy laugh. From that point forth the clowning around rarely stops and mostly it is magical. Although many a parent has come to regret having
Uncategorized Baby laughing in his sleep It seems like it is so much fun being a baby that you will still be chuckling to yourself in your sleep... Thanks to Rachael for sending us the link.
science Q. Why do we laugh? A. Because we are happy. That's shortest answer to the question why do we laugh? But what makes us happy? Ah, well now your asking. If you're a baby then lots of things make you happy but as we get older we lose a little of that magic. Thus friday my
science What makes children laugh? One of the nicest things about laughter is that it is contagious. Some colleagues at Kingston University are now interested in childen's jokes. They'd like to hear from you. Or, in fact from your kids. They want to know their favourite jokes. You can send the
science Your little monkeys are a bit like... little monkeys. When I was born, I was quite furry with big sticky out ears. My mother thought I looked a bit like a monkey. She told the nurses, who told her off: "Mrs Addyman, he's not a monkey, he's your beautiful baby." Which, of course,
science LEGO mini-figures are getting angrier Christian Jarrett at the excellent BPS Research Digest reports on an ingenious but depressing study of the world's most popular toy. Researchers have studied the facial experessions of lego mini-figures and found that they are getting angrier, while the themes are become more 'conflict based'. Bartneck
video Tiddles tickles tootsies So far on this blog we've discussed whether babies could object to being tickled and wondered why cats are the funniest pets. Here's one answer to both those questions.
video After the laughter.. As every parent knows all too well, it's not all fun and games having a baby or being a baby. As well as laughter, there will be tears. Quite a lot of tears, especially when your mean parents make you and your friends wear silly hats. People should
video Your Babies #015: Which is the funniest animal? Why are cats funnier than dogs? I don't know but the whole internet agrees that there simply no contest. Cats are funnier. (Actually, someone asked me this question at the Wellcome Collection Packed Lunch. When they get round to posting the podcast you can find out what I
video Your Babies #014: Light goes on, light goes off A little bit of causal hilarity from Rory and family. Babies need to spend a lot of time learning about cause and effect. Things that we take for granted only because we learnt it so young. Things like the fact that some objects are soft and some are hard. The
book I wrote a novel. It doesn't have any babies but it has a few jokes. In fact it's about a stand up comedian who isn't very good at telling them. And it doesn't have much science, but there is some philosophy. Help Yourself - Amazon.co.
science Let's laugh at babies for a change.. On this blog we sometimes to forget that you can laugh at the babies as well as with them. via Humor Train. via we know memes baby halloween costumes via i'm funny
science Interview with Red Orbit magazine. Back in November I did a short interview with popular science website Red Orbit. For some inexplicable reason, I forgot to include it here. It's quite a bit more 'sciencey' than usual. The science of Baby Laughter - Red Orbit
video Your Babies #013: Youngest ever fan of ripping paper Lindsey sent me this remarkable video of her three month old son Dominic laughing at his daddy ripping paper. As far as I know, he's the youngest baby ever to find this amusing. Well, at first he finds it rather shocking but then he has a good old
