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    Even babies and toddlers know that swapping saliva is a sure sign of love

    For infants, toddlers, and children, one sign of an especially close relationship is if two people do something that involves exchanging saliva, like taking bites from the same piece of food.
    by Nell Greenfieldboyce Jan 20, 2022 4 minutes
    This stock image shows a baby and father playing at home. New research finds that babies judge the relationship between two people by whether or not they willingly share saliva.

    Even before they can talk, young babies know that two people must have a close relationship if they're willing to do to anything that involves swapping saliva.

    Kissing on the mouth, sharing a spoon, taking licks off of someone's ice-cream cone — all of these activities generally only happen when people have an especially intimate relationship, and this fact appears to be obvious to infants who are only 8 to 10 months old, according to a new study in the journal Science.

    "From a really young age, without much experience at all with these things, infants are able to understand not only who is connected but how they are connected," says of MIT, who studies what babies and young children understand about the complexities of their social world. "They are able to distinguish between different kinds of cooperative relationships."

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