@article {5006, title = {Early concepts of intimacy: Young humans use saliva sharing to infer close relationships}, journal = {Science}, volume = {375}, year = {2022}, month = {01/2022}, pages = {311 - 315}, abstract = {

Across human societies, people form {\textquotedblleft}thick{\textquotedblright} relationships characterized by strong attachments, obligations, and mutual responsiveness. People in thick relationships share food utensils, kiss, or engage in other distinctive interactions that involve sharing saliva. We found that children, toddlers, and infants infer that dyads who share saliva (as opposed to other positive social interactions) have a distinct relationship. Children expect saliva sharing to happen in nuclear families. Toddlers and infants expect that people who share saliva will respond to one another in distress. Parents confirm that saliva sharing is a valid cue of relationship thickness in their children{\textquoteright}s social environments. The ability to use distinctive interactions to infer categories of relationships thus emerges early in life, without explicit teaching; this enables young humans to rapidly identify close relationships, both within and beyond families.

}, issn = {0036-8075}, doi = {10.1126/science.abh1054}, url = {https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.abh1054}, author = {Thomas, Ashley J. and Woo, Brandon and Nettle, Daniel and Elizabeth S Spelke and Rebecca Saxe} } @article {5225, title = {Infants infer potential social partners by observing the interactions of their parent with unknown others}, journal = {Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences}, volume = {119}, year = {2022}, month = {05/2022}, abstract = {

Significance

Despite decades of research on the development of social knowledge, few experiments have tested how infants learn about new individuals from the behavior of their caregivers. Here, we show that infants learn who is a potential social partner by observing their parents{\textquoteright} interactions with previously unknown individuals.

Abstract

Infants are born into networks of individuals who are socially connected. How do infants begin learning which individuals are their own potential social partners? Using digitally edited videos, we showed 12-mo-old infants{\textquoteright} social interactions between unknown individuals and their own parents. In studies 1 to 4, after their parent showed affiliation toward one puppet, infants expected that puppet to engage with them. In study 5, infants made the reverse inference; after a puppet engaged with them, the infants expected that puppet to respond to their parent. In each study, infants{\textquoteright} inferences were specific to social interactions that involved their own parent as opposed to another infant{\textquoteright}s parent. Thus, infants combine observation of social interactions with knowledge of their preexisting relationship with their parent to discover which newly encountered individuals are potential social partners for themselves and their families.

}, issn = {0027-8424}, doi = {10.1073/pnas.2121390119}, url = {https://pnas.org/doi/full/10.1073/pnas.2121390119}, author = {Thomas, Ashley J. and Saxe, Rebecca and Spelke, Elizabeth S.} }