Infant Consciousness

The study of infant consciousness investigates when subjective experience begins, how it unfolds, and how it maps onto neural and psychological development in the early years of life. In the first year, infants’ sensory, motor, cognitive, and social abilities expand as the brain matures. It is widely held that infants first have a minimal form of experience, consisting of feelings and sensory experiences. More complex forms of experience, such as self-consciousness, emerge later. A central challenge in studying infant consciousness is that infants cannot give verbal reports or follow commands and have poor motor control. In addition, many cognitive and perceptual processes can occur without consciousness. As a result, researchers must combine evidence from behavioral and neural markers with developmental milestones to infer conclusions about consciousness in infants.