WEBVTT

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[Campos] Emotion is a nonverbal language.

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[woman] Is your tummy ticklish?

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[Campos] Emotions reveal the cognition,
the understanding of the baby.

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And, furthermore,

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emotions are the nonverbal communication

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of the baby towards the parent,
and the parent towards the baby.

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Therefore, I thought that emotions

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were a royal road—
one royal road—

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to the study 
of the baby's development.

NOTE Paragraph

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[narrator] In this study, 
babies between 9 and 12 months

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are brought into the lab and placed 
on a large, plexiglass top table.

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Half of the table 
has a checkerboard pattern,

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just underneath the surface.

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But halfway across is a visual cliff,

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which the baby can tell 
drops off steeply.

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The plexiglass top continues,
so it's perfectly fine to proceed.

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But the baby isn't so sure,

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and this is a big drop 
for a baby just starting to crawl.

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She wants to get across
to get the toy,

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but she's cautious, and looks 
to the opposite end of the table

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where her mother is.

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The parent is instructed to smile 
or make a fear face.

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If the mother is posing a fear face,
the baby typically does not cross

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this stair step downward,

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this modified visual cliff
or visual step.

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On the other hand, 
if the mother poses a smile,

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or somehow poses 
a nonverbal communication

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that is not prohibitive,
but encouraging,

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the child is much more likely

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to cross over to her.

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This particular study demonstrates

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the role of nonverbal communication

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in determining the child's
behavior in uncertain context.

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A baby will, when they encounter 
something ambiguous, something uncertain,

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will typically look 
to the significant other—

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the mother, the father,

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a grandparent, the caregiver—

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in order to figure out what to do.

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So, by 11-12 months of age,
the baby is already doing

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what all of us do 
when something unusual happens.

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We look around to figure out 
how other people are reacting.