Baron-Cohen told me that he thought infant eye contact might be a precursor to empathy because clues found in peoples' faces, especially in the area around the eyes, could help to decode another person's emotions. But he also offered a qualification: "I think it could be too simplistic to say that the more eye contact you make the better your empathy. … If you stare at somebody that's not necessarily very empathic." As for the crying, he thought it might be evidence of girls' "higher sensitivity to another person's emotions," but he was "not 100 percent convinced that just because one baby starts another baby crying that that's necessarily anything to do with empathy."