Baby Learning

"Babies come [prepared:learned] to learn any of the world's languages." Alison Bruderer, a cognitive scientist at the University of British Columbia. "Which means no matter where they're growing up in the world, their brains are prepared to pick up the language they're listening to around them." And listen they do. But [another:other] key factor to discerning a language's particular sounds may be for babies to move their tongues as they listen. Bruderer and her colleagues tested that notion by sitting 24 sixth-month-olds in front of a video screen and displaying a checkerboard pattern, while they played one of two tracks: a single, repeated "D" sound in [Hindi:french] ; or two slightly different, alternating "D" sounds. The idea here is that babies have a short [attention:concentration] span, so novel things hold their gaze. And indeed, the babies did stare at the screen longer while the alternating "D"s played than for the single "D"- [indicating:intimating] they could detect the novelty.