Self-awareness begins in infancy and develops in stages. The development of self-awareness early in life reveals layers of processes that expand from the perception of the body in action to the evaluative sense of self as perceived by others.

A critical component of self-awareness is children's ability to distinguish that their physical bodies are separate entities from others. This body awareness begins soon after birth. Researchers Filipetti and her team showed 20 healthy newborns a video of another baby being touched on the cheek with a soft paintbrush. As they watched the video, the newborns' cheeks were stroked either simultaneously or with a time delay. The babies could not explain what they experienced, but they showed greater interest in looking at the other baby's face being stroked synchronously with their own. The babies were less interested when the face was presented to them upside down, making it less relatable to themselves.

The researchers interpreted their observations as evidence that babies have the essential ingredients for body perception or the

. When babies see their bodies match what they feel, they notice just as adults do. The researchers concluded that newborns could differentiate themselves from others and form a coherent perception of their bodies.

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2. Filippetti, M. L., Johnson, M. H., Lloyd-Fox, S., Dragovic, D., & Farroni, T. (2013). Body perception in newborns. Current biology : CB, 23(23), 2413–2416. doi:10.1016/j.cub.2013.10.017