The Nature Of Knowledge

1. "Inferential learning mechanisms" refer to the workings of the baby's mind. Their brain absorbs the surroundings of its environment, and the baby constantly gains new ideas about life, however simple they may be. As the baby grows older, its brain gets more advanced, and the theories that it has formed about life grow more and more sophisticated. This article shows just how much humanity underestimates the knowledge of an infant's mind.

2. Once a baby turns one, it really starts to understand people. The baby begins to observe the direction in which people point. It also begins to discover how it should feel about something by seeing how the situation effects the people around them. Whenever a baby takes an object, it observes how their parents react to it, and then determine whether or not the object is good or bad. By eighteen months, the baby starts to realize that other people have aims that are different from its own.
Nevertheless, it is ignorant of the fact that other people have different beliefs than it does, for those beliefs are hidden away in the individual's mind. On average, babies are unable to lie until they reach age four. Before they reach that age, they cannot lie because they lack understanding of how to make an individual believe something.

3. The author assumes that babies are able to dismiss or embrace certain theories about the world. In an experiment in which a baby is shown a box of candy, it instantly believes that the box contains the yummy treats that they yearn for so dearly. However, once the baby opens the box, it will discover that pencils have replaced the candies, and it will be surprised that its theory has been proven wrong. Since this experiment no longer fits the evidence, the baby will conclude that candy boxes now hold pencils, and until it discovers the truth behind this experiment, its dismissal and acceptance of new theories will continue.
Also, babies can also draw conclusions as to what people like and don't like. For example, a woman named Betty showed some infants two foods, one she liked, and one she disliked. When she ate each type of food, she made a positive and negative face to show the baby which food met either her approval or disapproval. A theory began to form in the babies' minds on which food met which category. As a result they gave Betty the food that she desired. This proves that babies are little scientists who come up with new theories, however primitive they may be.