SOFIE GELSKOVThe distinctive brain activity pattern associated with visual consciousness in adults is present in babies as young as 5 months old, according to a study published last week (April 18) in Science. The authors claim their findings represent the first scientific evidence that babies are perceptually conscious.
“It’s a very nice study,” said Victor Lamme, a cognitive neuroscientist at the University of Amsterdam who studies visual consciousness. “If it’s all correct, it tells you not only that children of these ages can see a face, as we know they can from the first day, but that they have some sense of knowing that they see a face.”
The findings could have implications for our understanding of learning and memory in babies, researchers said. And if this neural marker for perceptual consciousness stands up, it could be used to assess consciousness in vegetative-state patients—and even animals. “This methodology could open the way to finally objectively verify whether or not problematic [noncommunicative] cases have conscious sensations,” said Lamme. (For more on monitoring non-communicative patients, ...
