Isn’t that more like 18 months, rather than several years, for the “ideal” gestation period for humans? I’ve read that figure, based on other development and general life timelines, but it was years ago and I can’t be sure. In fact, I can’t even remember the name of the area of study that correlates periods of life - a reminder would be a help, if anyone knows.
As for the OP, I agree that young children have difficulty seeing things from others’ points of view, which probably accounts for their widespread inability to hide effectively, as well as a more general inability to lie without being found out (which amounts to pretty much the same thing).
What I find more intriguing is kids’ inability to seek. I’m constantly amazed at how bad my own two kids are at looking for lost things. Even well into their pre-teen years, they would look for, say, a lost CD case for ages - genuinely and intently trying to find it - and not notice that it’s lying on the table in the middle of the room, in full view. Or, in one incident, a pair of shoes left in the middle of the floor of an (unusually) otherwise completely tidy bedroom, the first thing an adult would notice.
I used to joke with my wife about this. You know when there’s been a body discovered out in the countryside, and you get those TV images on the news showing lines of police and volunteers systematically searching the surrounding undergrowth for evidence? There’s a good reason why there aren’t any kids in those lines.
Sadly, we don’t get that much better at finding things as we age. Recently, my wife lost her mobile phone - couldn’t find it for hours. She never thought to look in the last place she’d put it … the fridge. :smack:
I’d agree with this theory. When my oldest son was about a year old and going through some separation anxiety, he’d come sit in the bathroom while I showered. We had a clear shower door, so he’d see me get wet. He couldn’t figure out, though, that me with wet hair was the same person as me with dry hair. He’d scream bloody murder, like I’d abandoned him, when he saw this strange person all of a sudden standing in the shower. I think he just didn’t recognize me. As soon as I towel dried my hair and it was all fluffy again, he’d go all happy.
By the way, he sucks at hiding. His main hiding place is under his blanket on his bed, yelling, “I’m hiding!”
The main difference is that a child wants to be found, while a chased animal doesn’t. Babies and toddlers may not even realize that “hiding” is part of the fun—they’re just looking for the reward of being “found”. It’s after they develop a theory of mind that they begin to realize that there’s also a reward in fooling someone else, and that the game is more fun if it’s harder for the seeker (but only up to a point—they want to be found eventually, of course).
I wonder if there are animals that play hide-and-seek? It seems like it could help develop hunting skills. I’ve known a lot of dogs, but never seen them to play that way. What about cats? Any wild animals?
I remember being three or four, and hiding out from my parents because I had gotten out of bed after bedtime. I can clearly remember thinking that if I couldn’t see them, that meant that they couldn’t see me, although to be fair this was from a position where they definitely wouldn’t be able to see the rest of my body below my eyes if they couldn’t see my eyes too. However, the top of my head apparently didn’t occur to me.
In terms of kids being bad at finding things, I’m with my mother’s best friend, who posits that if you don’t want to find something, send your children to look for it.
The earlier comments about the way human babies develop are the answer, I think. Human babies, toddlers, and children suck at hiding because they have no instinct to hide. Humans have to learn to hide. So, why don’t human babies know how to hide instinctively? Because they don’t need to hide, their parents protect them instead.
I would venture to guess that baby elephants, rhinos, and hippos suck at hiding too. That’s because their parents are so bad-assed that they can kick the crap out of any predator. Human babies are basically never ever left alone. A human baby’s response to being left alone is not to hide and stay as still and quiet as possible until their mother comes back, it’s to kick and scream as loudly as possible to tell mom to come back and pick them up. Any predator that wants to eat a human baby is going to have to deal with the human adults first. And humans are the REAL kings of the jungle. Well, except for a shark on top of an elephant, just eating and trampling everything.
Kittens and young cats enjoy hide-and-seek, sure. They’re great fun to watch.
Interestingly in the context of the OP, they’re not actually very good at it. For example, a cat will crouch behind a chair, stealthy as can be, ready to pounce out and surprise another cat in the vicinity. The fact that their back end is sticking out from behind the chair, and their tail is in full view, thrashing from side to side, doesn’t occur to them.
And, crucially, it doesn’t matter. The cat’s playmate is looking for the front end of the cat, and will continue the hide/seek game as if it didn’t see the tail or arse. My guess is that they’re playing hunting, and only concentrating on the attack/defense part of it rather than the act of hiding and seeking for its own sake.
Depends on what your metric is. There isn’t just one feature that develops slowly and all you need to do is catch that up.
Humans are unique in that we continue the mammalian fetal brain growth for about 1 year after birth. All other mammals (even chimps) have a distinct, and slower, brain growth rate once they are born.
So, are we caught up after 1 year? Of course not. We’ve barely begun to use our adult walking method by that age. We’re not sexually mature until age 12 or so (varies a lot and depends on certain factors), and we can’t tackle certain logical thinking processes until we’re 9 or 10.
Bottom line, there are a whole suite of human features and behaviors that unfold at rates quite different from even our closest relatives.
Addressing the OP, an earlier poster got it right with the theory of mind. It’s not until we’re about 3 or 4 that we understand another person can know something that we don’t know (or that they can not know something that we do know). A two year old really does think that if she can’t you, you can’t see her.
Exactly - our kitten (well, quickly becoming a cat) will hide from the other cat behind a sock. Like, a sock in a ball. The entire cat is visible behind the sock. Especially his little booty-wriggling pounce preparation.
One of the only early memories I still have was my realization at about 4 or 5 that “if I can’t see you, you can’t see me” is not true. I had to consider their viewpoint, my own view was irrelevant.
Not that there is really much research on the mental development of a fox, full-grown or otherwise, but I think that we can all admit that most, if not all, animals lack the ability to learn, recognize, reason, deduce, analyze, or perform many other cognitive functions that humans can. You can talk about primates who learn to ask for water and do simple arithmetic all you want, but I seriously doubt that anyone with their head screwed on right can reasonably suggest that any other species has the same type of cognitive development and abilities that we do. Therefore, an animal running and hiding is merely a reaction to its fight for survival, something that it is in its nature to do. A child trying to hide as part of a game is less about survival and basic functions and more about where they are in their cognitive development and if they have yet learned the lesson of object permanence.
Besides, have you ever turned a pre-schooler loose OUTSIDE??? I can bet it will hide from you much better.
FWIW I was reading a site advocating against the execution of mentally disabled, and there was one case described which involved “the most retarded man on Death Row”. He was said to have an IQ around 35 and had tried to hide himself in a place that was too small to conceal his legs, yet like the baby in the OP he thought he was invisible.
What that would equate to in a normal child I don’t know. Maybe about three years old?
I should point out that animals don’t learn to hide the way human children learn to hide. Human children learn to hide by having a theory about what a seeker might see if the seeker is looking at them. But most animals have no such elaborate mental modeling of predators. They simply engage in behavior that results in them being difficult to find. A baby deer doesn’t have a clue about what might be going on in a coyote’s mind. It just knows that it has to keep absolutely still and be absolutely quiet. It doesn’t even realize that such things as predators exist. It’s just that for millions of years baby deer who were noisy and fidgety got eaten and those that were quiet and still survived. A mouse doesn’t stay near cover because it has the idea that if it’s exposed to the open a predator will be able to see it, it just knows that open spaces are frightening, it doesn’t know why.
Even predators that lie in wait to pounce probably don’t have a model of their prey’s mental state. A leopard doesn’t hide in a tree over a watering hole because it knows that other animals get thirsty like it does, and that they’ll have to come to drink. It just knows that other animals come to the watering hole, it doesn’t need a theory about why they come.
Three of our four cats are well into the double digits agewise and they still like to stalk and chase each other. Sometimes we’ll be in the bedroom when one cat comes tearing in, but does a sharp 180 to hide between the door and the wall, then his pursuer comes in. They’re indoor cats, but animal and bird noises from outside tend to get their blood up.
One thing they used to do when they were younger is wiggle their butts when preparing for a spring or dash; guess they learned not to do that anymore.
