University of Padova. “Newborns come into the world wired to socially interact. Is a propensity to socially oriented action already present before birth?”

The researchers used ultrasound recorders to make three-dimensional videos of five pairs of twins, once at 14 weeks and again at 18 weeks. By the 14th week, they were already reaching for each other. This was even more pronounced by the 18th week, when fetuses touched each other more often than themselves.

Though some contact is inevitable between two growing bodies sharing a confined space, kinematic analysis showed that fetuses used distinct gestures when touching each other, rather than touching themselves or uterine walls. Their hands lingered.

“Performance of movements towards the twin is not accidental,” wrote the researchers. Their findings were published October 7 in Public Library of Science One.

Earlier research had shown that within hours of birth, newborns already imitate the facial gestures of others people, indicating an inborn capacity for social behavior. The researchers call this “the social pre-wiring hypothesis.”

The findings “epitomize the congenital propensity for sociality of primates in general and of humans in particular,” wrote the researchers. Put another way, it’s human nature to reach out and touch someone.

Image: Video frames representing a fetus reaching towards and “caressing” the back (left) or head (right) of a sibling./PLoS One.

See Also:

• What Is It Like To Be A Baby?
• Designer Babies: A Right to Choose?
• Baby Got Beat: Music May Be Inborn
• Babies See Pure Color, but Adults Peer Through Prism of Language

Citation: “Wired to Be Social: The Ontogeny of Human Interaction.” By Umberto Castiello, Cristina Becchio, Stefania Zoia, Cristian Nelini, Luisa Sartori, Laura Blason, Giuseppina D’Ottavio, Maria Bulgheroni, Vittorio Gallese. Public Library of Science One, Vol. 5 No. 10, October 7, 2010.

Brandon Keim’s Twitter stream and reportorial outtakes; Wired Science on Twitter. Brandon is currently working on an ecological tipping point project.

Authors: Brandon Keim

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