Researchers at a U.K. university say they’ve found evidence that unborn babies have a penchant for looking at and responding to faces — or, at the least, light patterns that resemble the structure of the human face. Experts at Lancaster University in Lancaster, U.K., have found that babies respond to face-like shapes — light designs that resemble eyes and a nose. Meanwhile, researchers found that unborn, third-trimester babies ignored random shapes, according to the Telegraph.
The conclusion? Unborn babies prefer to look at facial stimuli more than anything else, according to an article published in the journal “Current Biology.” “In our study they had to move their head to keep looking at the face-like stimulus when we moved it away from them. So, they are active participants in finding information from the environment,” psychologist Vincent Reid, a lead researcher, told the Telegraph. “What this means is that other ways of interacting with the fetus can be considered.” READ MORE
