So you can add this to your list of essential parenting skills: keeping a poker face. It turns out, according to a new study, that kids as young as four months can read the emotions playing across your face. Apparently, they use the same brain regions as adults when processing the gaze of another person.

The four-month-olds in the study had a face that either looked at them or looked away and then smiled and raised its eyebrows, an indication of friendship. "In four-month-old babies we demonstrate very early specialisation, and indeed, an adult-like pattern of activation of the brain regions that process face-to-face social interaction," said Dr. Tobias Grossman of the Centre for Brain and Cognitive Development, Birkbeck at the University of London.

Other studies have shown that autistic toddlers have difficulty making eye contact, so Dr. Grossman wants to focus on the importance of this skill in future research. Professor Mark Johnson, who also worked on the study, was quick to note, however, that "we are not claiming it could diagnose autism - merely that it may prove a useful early warning signal." Still, it seems to me that the more we know about these sorts of things, the better off we are.

So the moral of all this? Don't think you have an automatic upper hand when playing Texas Hold 'Em with your four-month-old. They can read you like a book.