Language heard in the womb influences a baby's cry?

[Siggie]

This is very interesting. It seems that the language the infants are exposed to while in the womb may influence how they cry. This possibly suggests that babies from even this very early age, might be attempting to mimic language. This seems adaptive too right? If the baby's cry sounds like language to the people around her, she may be more quick or even just likely to get care and attention.
Although the effect size is quite large for this study, it has not yet be replicated, so interpret cautiously, but really cool right?!

The distinctive sounds of a newborn's first cries may be influenced by the mother tongue of its parents.

A new study of over a thousand recorded cries from 30 French newborns and 30 German newborns found differences in the cries' melody patterns. French cries tended to have a rising melody, while the German cries tended to have a falling melody.

The finding suggests that newborns just a few days old may already be trying to imitate the prevailing intonation patterns of the language they heard while still in the womb.

"I think French and German are quite different with respect to their intonation patterns," says Kathleen Wermke of the Center for Prespeech Development and Developmental Disorders at the University of Wurzburg in Germany. She says that in French, intonation is characterized by a pitch rise at the end of words or phrases, while the German language has a falling pattern.

Those differences are mirrored in the differences seen in newborns' cries, according to a report in the journal Current Biology.

Imitation May Enhance Bonding

Of course, both groups of infants were capable of producing different types of cries, says Wermke.

But in general, she says, "the dramatic finding was that the French prefer to produce those having their pitch maximum at the end, while the Germans did not."

Newborns are likely highly motivated to imitate their mothers in order to enhance bonding, she and her colleagues argue.

"If we would have compared German and English newborns, we probably would have found not such a strong difference," says Wermke, because their intonation patterns are more similar to each other.

A Surprising Amount Of Vocal Control

Previous studies have already shown that newborns appear to show a preference for melodies that they heard prenatally. And Toben Mintz, associate professor of psychology and linguistics at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles, says scientists already knew that newborns can distinguish different languages, probably based on rhythmic patterns.

"But what is really novel about this study is showing that they can actually produce these patterns in their cries," Mintz says. "Crying is not linguistic, yet they seem to be echoing the acoustic patterns that they've heard either in utero or every early on, very early exposure, right after birth."

He says it's surprising that such young infants have this degree of vocal control. "That is quite astonishing that they can do this so early on, and it suggests some sort of innate mechanisms that form this link," he says.

Even though most new parents concentrate on trying to stop a baby's crying, Wermke says, the take-home message for her is that people should also listen more carefully and truly appreciate the complexity of a baby's first sounds.

"I think we should be more aware that crying is a language itself," she says, "and the baby is really trying to communicate with us by its first sounds already."

Source

[Anoush]

Re: Language heard in the womb influences a baby's cry?

Thanks Siggie, this is a very interesting subject and I see that it is newly found out. I have heard about 15 or 16 years ago that when a mother talks to her baby in the womb and even teaches him or her numbers and mathematics, the baby will grow up to be that much more faster to learn math and be very good in it - and the same applies to languages and in any other academic subjects, I believe.

[Siggie]

Re: Language heard in the womb influences a baby's cry?

I don't think that's the case Anoush. I know giving infants lots of stimulation is helpful because it maximizes dendridic connections, however I think claims of teaching children mathematics is dubious.

[Anoush]

Re: Language heard in the womb influences a baby's cry?

I don't think that's the case Anoush. I know giving infants lots of stimulation is helpful because it maximizes dendridic connections, however I think claims of teaching children mathematics is dubious.

I can understand why you are doubtful Siggie; at the time I am not sure, but I either read it or I heard it in the news, can't remember which one, though that's what they said. I was hesitant to believe it also. Come to think of it I know one of my cousins who happens to be a genius, he remembers one incident when he was in his mother's womb.

[Siggie]

Re: Language heard in the womb influences a baby's cry?

Anoush it is impossible to have memories from the womb. Your cousin is mistaken; memory is imperfect.

[KanadaHye]

Re: Language heard in the womb influences a baby's cry?

Anoush it is impossible to have memories from the womb. Your cousin is mistaken; memory is imperfect.

During the final weeks inside the womb, babies suck, swallow, breathe, and blink their eyes... although prenatal and newborn memory isn't as developed, they must have to remember to instantly suck like they practiced in the womb.

[Siggie]

Re: Language heard in the womb influences a baby's cry?

All of those are reflexes.

[KanadaHye]

Re: Language heard in the womb influences a baby's cry?

All of those are reflexes.

So sucking is an unlearned reflex? Don't you have to think before you suck or is it a reflex?

[Siggie]

Re: Language heard in the womb influences a baby's cry?

So sucking is an unlearned reflex? Don't you have to think before you suck or is it a reflex?

Yes, it's unlearned. If you brush a finger against a baby's cheek, they will turn toward it and start sucking. It's called the "rooting reflex". Most (maybe all?) of these reflexes also disappear after a few months. ]


Let me also clarify why you can't teach a baby language, mathematics, and other subjects when they are in the womb. They can hear, but they can't hear well, so the reason why they get these preferences for native language and the cries, is because they can hear the rhythm, but that's about it. So, I guess you can imagine what the world would sound like if you were underwater. You can't learn words that way and how would you know what the words mean when you can't see? You can tell a baby, an apple is a red fruit when it doesn't know what red or fruit is right?

So, if the baby cannot understand you, you can forget about teaching it mathematics and other subjects.

Remember the big fuss about Mozart and classical music? The media picked up that research study and people out to make money starting marketing that stuff, but scientists instead set out to replicate and find out how much the results would generalize. They found that it doesn't matter what type of music it is; any type of music can be beneficial.

[Yedtarts]

Re: Language heard in the womb influences a baby's cry?

Now I learned why people suck so much