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Babies cannot distinguish the expressions on your face beyond 12 inches. A baby two to three days old can perceive your face at a distance of 12 inches but not further away.
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Leaning over a crib and smiling at a newborn is an habit for most parents, however you will be surprised to learn that your baby cannot make out their faces.
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A study has shown that beyond 12 inches (30 cm) babies struggle to see the expressions of their parents or relatives, and only see a blurred image.
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Researchers at the University of Oslo have used technology, mathematics, and studies of infant visual perception to demonstrate for the first time what newborns can distinguish. The results show us that a baby two to three days old can perceive faces, and perhaps also emotional facial expressions, at around a distance of 12 inches – which corresponds to the distance between a mother and her nursing baby.
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But if the distance is greater than 24 inches (60 cm) or more, the visual image becomes too blurry for the baby to perceive faces and expressions. Previously, when researchers have tried to estimate exactly what a newborn baby sees, they have used only still photos. In this study, “Our idea was to use moving images,” said Emeritus Professor Svein Magnussen of the Institute of Psychology.
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In order to carry out the test, the researchers had to combine modern simulation techniques with a preview of how babies’ vision works. The scientists made video recordings of the faces when their emotional expressions changed. Then the participating adults watched the videos. The idea was that if adults couldn’t identify a facial expression, then they could certainly assume that a newborn couldn’t either.
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Adult participants correctly identified facial expressions in three out of four cases when viewing the video from a distance of 30 cm.
How do babies see?
When the distance was increased, the identification of the participating babies were random responses.
This led to the conclusion that the ability to identify facial expressions based on the visual information available to a newborn baby reaches its limit at a distance of approximately 30 cm.
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The researchers said that newborns can mimic adult mimicry from the first days of life, but that doesn’t mean they understand what that expression means, long before their vision is developed enough to perceive details in their surroundings.
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The study was conducted by researchers at the Institute of Psychology at the University of Oslo, in collaboration with colleagues from Uppsala University and Eclipse Optics in Stockholm, Sweden.
