Any basis to “babies don’t know they’re separate from mom until x age”?

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thelovemonkey

New member
I keep seeing this in books and other decent-ish sources (i.e. not TikTok and instagram reels)— babies don’t know they’re a separate person from you until some indicated age (I’ve seen 4 months, 1 year, 2 years but usually 6-7 months is cited).
Is there any scientific basis to this? Is this based on when babies develop some sort of self awareness/the ego and it’s just assumed that they consider themselves part of the mother until then? How do we know when self awareness arises?

Here’s an example of this being used to explain separation anxiety:

https://www.babycentre.co.uk/a6577/developmental-milestones-separation-and-independence-in-babies#:~:text=Seven%20months%20to%2012%20months,even%20for%20a%20short%20while.

Seeking any research on babies understanding that they are/aren’t separate from mom, and casual discussion about this claim (anecdotes about when your baby developed a sense of self and what that looked like are welcome!)
 
@thelovemonkey Newborns seem to know that their mothers are different than themselves, shown in the following experiment:

For example, in a recent study we tested newborn infants within 24 hr of their birth to see whether they would manifest a discrimination between double touch stimulation specifying themselves, and external (one way) tactile stimulation specifying nonself objects (Rochat & Hespos, 1997). For testing, we use the robust rooting response all healthy infants manifest from birth and by which tactile stimulation at the corner of the mouth is followed by the infant’s head turn with mouth opening toward the stimulation (see Fig. 1). Following a simple procedure, we recorded the frequency of rooting in response to either external tactile stimulation, the experimenter stroking the infant’s cheek, or in response to tactile self-stimulation when infants spontaneously brought one of their hands in contact with their cheek. We found that newborns tended to manifest rooting responses almost three times more often in response to external compared to self-stimulation. These observations suggest that already at birth, infants pick up the intermodal invariants (single touch or double touch combined with proprioception) that specify self- versus external stimulation, showing evidence of an early sense of their own body, hence an early perceptually-based sense of themselves as differentiated entities. Note, that it can be argued that infants, particularly at such an early age, might be only discriminating between two nondescript perceptual events. We propose instead that such discrimination is fundamentally self-specifying as it involves proprioception, a perceptual system that conveys first and foremost information about the body and its situation in the environment. Proprioception, in conjunction with other perceptual systems, is indeed the modality of the self “par excellence.”

http://psychology.emory.edu/cognition/rochat/lab/Perceivedselfininfancy.pdf
Click to expand...
 
@thelovemonkey My understanding of theory of mind is the intuitive awareness that not everyone knows what you know.

Less about separateness and more shared awareness.

Ex: I'm a baby. Mom leaves the room. I put the red ball under the box. When Mom comes back in the room, what do I think she knows about where the red ball is?

When we are very young, we default to assuming others generally know what we know. We assume that Mom knows where the red ball is, essentially because we know where the red ball is.

Theory of mind is considered "developed" when we can relatively consistently and across circumstances recognize that others don't know what we know, or think the way we think, or feel the way we feel.

Tbh some adults struggle with it.

That's my take but welcoming alternatives.
 
@thelovemonkey Well it’s mostly based on the development of theory of mind. Young children (below the age of 4) don’t know yet that other people have different knowledge than them. I believe this is a relevant review of the current stage of research around its development

Edit: of course as always with development in children the age they learn something can hugely differ, but between 3 and 4 is the general age it is assumed theory of mind develops. There also seem to be cultural differences in when which part of it develops so the way you interact with your child may actually affect when they learn empathy.
 
@lovepark65 I don't know about that. When my daughter was not quite 3 she had a phase of deliberately hiding items from us, for example my work shirt, which she would do extremely effectively (I found it months later slid between pillowcases in the linen cupboard). She understood very well that we didn't know while she did.
 
@lovepark65 I was trying to figure out what separate means in this context and theory of mind came to mind. But in that case, the mother part doesn’t seem relevant? They just assume everyone is operating on the same info, not just parents?
 
@walter2013 Well pop science books often say they don’t know that they are seperate from the mother, but it’s more that they don’t know they are separate from their environment at first. Then, as infants, they slowly learn that they’re separate when they discover that they can do things with their hands.
 
@nik2015far I don’t think them being able to recognize a face proves that they understand their mother is separate and can walk away any moment and leave them unattended. Those two things are separate things to prove.
 
@a3yan I also think " proves that they understand their mother is separate and can walk away any moment " are two separate things.

I think its pretty well documented that babies don't have object permeance, and that doesn't come tell some time between 4-8 months (1,2). I think with out the idea of object permeance the mom is there when they are there and gone when they are gone, you can't really have an idea that someone could walk away and come back with out it.

However, I think with the article I listed, and the study /@meg123 cited, babies basically as soon as they are born can recognize the difference between things that are outside of them, and things that they generate. I think this indicates they have some concept of "Self", and when you have a concept of "Self" and that this is me its not much of a jump to look at a mom and go that is not-self.
 
@tema Jaques Lacan was a psychoanalyst / semiotician / structuralist —> post structuralist theorist. Mirror stage occurs when babies recognize themselves in the mirror and basically form an ego. Not very science based, very much theory based, but still fun to read about!
 
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