I’ll get you for this when I’m older (Image: Ilona Kovacs)

Newborn babies have revealed to the world when they start seeing in three dimensions.

Babies were thought to begin seeing in stereo at about four months after their due date. They actually learn to do it four months after they are exposed to light, even if they are born early.

Ilona Kovács at Budapest University of Technology and Economics in Hungary and her colleagues gave 15 premature and 15 full-term babies goggles that filtered out red or green light. Once a month for eight months, the team sat the babies in a dark room and got them to stare at patterns of dots on a screen. The goggles made the dots invisible unless viewed in 3D.


Sensors placed on each baby’s head picked up electrical signals that revealed whether they could see the dots. If they could, the sensor registered pulses of 1.875 hertz; if not, there was only a background signal.

The babies began to see stereo images about four months after they were born, whether they were premature or full term, showing that the environment, not an internal clock, is the likely trigger for the development of this ability in the brain

Journal reference: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1203096109