London: Babies as young as 9 months have the ability to recognize real-life objects from pictures. The research, conducted by scientists at Royal Holloway, University of London, and the University of South Carolina, found that babies can learn about a toy from a photograph of it well before their first birthday.
Jeanne Shinskey, from the Department of Psychology at Royal Holloway, said the study should interest any parent or caregiver who has ever read a picture book with an infant.
For parents and educators, these findings suggest that, well before their first words, babies are capable of learning about the real world indirectly from picture books, at least those that have very realistic images like photographs, Shinskey said.