In understanding how our brain evolves, researches investigate the behaviour of babies in some situations. For instance, to see whether babies would use social referencing to make decisions, researchers had to create a situation that would be new and unclear to young children.

In one experiment, researchers created a ‘visual cliff’ – a glass-covered space that had a ‘deep end’ and seemed unsafe to cross. As they crawled over the glass to get a toy, the babies reached the ‘deep end’ and weren’t sure whether they should keep going. At this point, the babies looked at their mothers – and the researchers studied what the babies did.

When the mothers posed a fearful expression, not one of babies ventured across the deep side. But almost all of the babies who saw their mothers’ happy faces crossed to the deep end. These babies recognised their mothers’ expressions and decided what to do based on what they ‘read’ in their mother’s faces.

Parenting tips learned from this experiment include being clear to make an encouraging face when you child is trying something new that is positive and safe and making a fear face when the child is considering an action not desired or dangerous.

This gives baby confidence to explore, play with a new object, by held by an unfamiliar relative visiting from out of town, and more.

Summing-up: Research has shown that babies use visual information from the faces of their caregivers to make sense of situations that are new or unclear. They use social reference to make decisions.