Phyllis's brother is encouraging his son to enjoy a variety of food from different cultures. He tempts his son by pretending to spoon-feed himself and smacking his lips each time the food touches his lips. Phyllis's nephew watches, fascinated. A year later, Phyllis visits and sees her young nephew enjoying a plate of spicy octopus. Her brother may have been successful in encouraging his son to eat such an interesting dish because his son observed someone else's positive expressions and reactions to the food. This is known as _____.

The mechanism by which babies use the emotional displays of the adult to regulate their behavior towards objects, people and situations is called "Social referencing". In other words, the infant who is in a moment of his neurodevelopment in which language has not yet appeared, he tries to understand what is happening around him by observing the reaction of others and imitating it. Throughout their first year of life, babies acquire the ability to interact in society, a skill that becomes more evident from the last trimester. At this age, the people around them are their teachers, their source of knowledge to understand the environment, and with the communication they establish with them they learn to make sense of the actions and relationships of other people and the objects that surround them. Thus they try to regulate their behavior according to the evaluations shown by their parents or caregivers. Infants begin to recognize emotional expressions (distinguish), then relate the expression to its corresponding emotion (recognize), then react to each expression (respond). In this way, infants "read" expressions to understand and react promptly to positive emotional expressions.