New research suggests that up to the age of four months, babies experience touch without knowing where that touch is coming from.
Reported in the Cell Press journal Current Biology, the research found that babies over six months old had trouble identifying the origin of a touch sensation when they crossed their hands and feet first. The same is said to be true for adults.
However, four-month-old babies got it right more often, actually outperforming the older babies and adults in identifying where they had been touched when their hands and feet were crossed.
"We think [this means] that before around six months of age, human babies perceive touches just on their bodies, and not in the external world," said Andrew Bremner of Goldsmiths, University of London.
