Using a one-way mirror and video cameras, psychologists led by Susan Scanlon Jones had 10 baby boys and 10 baby girls play, one at a time, with crib toys, a toy sink, a toy dashboard and a mobile. Their mothers either sat passively nearby, watching, or buried their faces in magazines. The infants beamed many more smiles at the watchful mothers than at the inattentive ones, but not because they felt ignored by the latter: in both situations the babies played just as long and happily with the toys. The finding suggests that even babies too young to think symbolically use smiles as signs and ways to communicate. Now if only parents could figure out what message those beaming visages were trying to send.
