Babies Begin Learning Language In the Womb

Hugh Pickens writes "Science Daily reports findings from a new study which suggest that infants begin picking up elements of what will be their first language in the womb, long before their first babble or coo, and are able to memorize sounds from the external world by the last trimester of pregnancy, with a particular sensitivity to melody contour in both music and language. Newborns prefer their mother's voice over other voices and perceive the emotional content of messages conveyed via intonation contours in maternal speech (a.k.a. 'motherese'). 'The dramatic finding of this study is that not only are human neonates capable of producing different cry melodies, but they prefer to produce those melody patterns that are typical for the ambient language they have heard during their fetal life, within the last trimester of gestation,' said Kathleen Wermke of the University of Würzburg in Germany. Wermke's team recorded and analyzed the cries of 60 healthy newborns, 30 born into French-speaking families and 30 born into German-speaking families, when they were three to five days old. The recordings of 2,500 cries as mothers changed babies' diapers, readied babies for feeding or otherwise interacted with the youngsters show an extremely early impact of native language, with analysis revealing clear differences in the shape of the newborns' cry melodies, based on their mother tongue."

Comments

Isn't this child abuse?

[Anonymous Coward]

Surely teaching languages like French and German to poor, defenseless, not even yet born babies breaks some law.

Re:Isn't this child abuse?

[LaughingCoder]

Actually I said what I meant. Your post was questioning the consistency of being pro-capital punishment and anti-abortion, which is common among people who vote Republican. Likewise, I was questioning the consistency of being anti-capital punishment and pro-abortion, which is common among people who vote Democrat. Both of these combinations reflect people who are inconsistent in their "values".

Dramatic Findings

[Phroggy]

I'm glad we have scientific evidence to back it up, but did anyone believe this wasn't the case? Is anybody surprised by these findings?

Re:Dramatic Findings

[NeutronCowboy]

In hindsight, all scientific findings are "obvious" and "just common sense". What people forget to mention is that before the finding, there were about 200 competing, equally obvious and common sense based theories on what was happening.

Re:Dramatic Findings

[Emerssso]

Assumed by some child language acquisition specialists, yes. Assumed by the ones who are scientific about their research, probably not.

As I understand it, we have a fair amount of information about children responding to other phonetic and phonological aspects of the language(s) spoken around them, but there hasn't been any other research on prenatal language acquisition.

Re:Dramatic Findings

[icebike]

I'm glad we have scientific evidence to back it up, but did anyone believe this wasn't the case? Is anybody surprised by these findings?

Actually I dismissed these "findings" as utter nonsense as soon as the word CRYING was followed by the word MELODY.

Re:Dramatic Findings

[Anonymous Coward]

Read some Thomas Kuhn - most of what scientists do is "mopping up" - making SURE that the things we THINK are true, really ARE true. Most scientists are not out there looking to discover the unexpected.

Re:Dramatic Findings

[MinistryOfTruthiness]

People have been playing music to babies in the womb for years. Many parents are encouraged to speak to their baby while in the womb so the baby learns the sounds of mommy's and daddy's voice. Not new, but it puts some more scientific evidence to what any parent with a kid under 20 (or more?) could have already told you.

Babies get excited and kick when there's commotion outside too -- loud noises and such. They are listening, and with fairly developed infant brains, it's no surprise that they begin getting accustomed to common sounds and tones they hear going on around them.

The only thing stopping this from being painfully obvious is the fact that people don't seem to believe that the baby exists in any real form until it's born. Academically, sure, but for 40 years liars and idiots have tried to tell us that it's not a baby until it's born. "Revelations" like this story will always surprise people who have bought into such intellectual dishonesty. There's no switch that says to the baby brain, "Okay, you're born now, start acting like a real brain." By birth, it's been working like that for many months, and doing what brains do: learning.

Re:Dramatic Findings

[coolsnowmen]

There are plenty of ground breaking scientific findings that were not obvious. They fall under the category paradigm-shifting findings.

--Evidence that suggested all things accelerate downward equally (neglecting air friction)
--Evidence that suggested the world was spherical
--Evidence that the earth was not at the center of...well anything
--Evidence that suggested time was reletive
--Evidence that things are made up of atoms and not Earth,Fire,Water,Air
--DNA ...

Interesting but dubious

[bargainsale]

Discussed here by someone who actually knows about this stuff:

http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=1869

Re:Interesting but dubious

[NeutronCowboy]

I like the last paragraph: "Oh, and the journalistic generalizations were false as an expression of the authors' findings. Of course."

Of course. Sigh.

Re:Interesting but dubious

[Dausha]

So, your point is best summarize by a comment found on that link:

"'This technique of cherry-picking atypical "typical" values for rhetorical effect is[...]'

"I would have completed this sentence 'intellectually dishonest[.'] Contrasting that with the way you completed it is a rather sad comment on scientific publishing, especially if this piece has already passed peer review without any of the reviewers finding this worthy of comment."

My experience is this situation is more common than not: that even peer-reviewed scientific papers are conclusory, generally in the direction of bias of the specific field (or at the very least, in the direction of the peer-reviewers.

Re:Genetics

[Phroggy]

This study doesn't show it, but there are ways of testing for that. For example, I know someone who was born in China and adopted by American parents. Genetically she's 100% Chinese, but culturally 100% American. Now, let's say she marries a guy who's also genetically Chinese but speaks English, and they have kids. Their children will not be exposed to Chinese language prior to birth. I would expect that the babies, while genetically 100% Chinese, will cry like Americans (insert joke here).

Re:So... when?

[DigiShaman]

Depends on the country you live in. Here's a chart of criteria/country.

http://www.pregnantpause.org/lex/world02.htm

Interesting to note, USA, Sweden, and North Korea have something in common. I've leave the exercise for the viewer to figure out what that is.

Re:So... when?

[Phroggy]

Didn't it say "in the last trimester"? Abortions after 24 weeks are illegal.

But this delineation is entirely arbitrary, based on "what would make a significant number of people uncomfortable" rather than on science. Are they human beings at 25 weeks? Not human beings at 23?

Re:So... when?

[NeutronCowboy]

Uh...... hate to break it to you, but that chart is wrong. In at least the US, on-Demand abortions come with severe restrictions. Notably, they don't happen after the third-trimester.

I'm pretty sure that site isn't an authoritative source, if for no other reason that it refers to "pro-lifers" and "pro-abortionists". The chosen terminology by each group is pro-life and pro-choice. Respect it.

Re:So... when?

[bennomatic]

Interesting to note, USA, Sweden, and North Korea have something in common. I've leave the exercise for the viewer to figure out what that is.

And the anti-abortion set apparently think that even Afghanistan is too liberal a country. Without even looking at the rest of the site, the color scheme tells me that this list is compiled by nut jobs. I find it amazing that Angola and Egypt get yellow flags for allowing abortion if the woman's life is in danger only--respectively--in the first trimester or if the pregnancy is the result of rape.

El Salvador, Malta and Vatican City, however, all get green flags across the board.

Re:So... when?

[joocemann]

There is a difference between when the 'vast majority of abortions happen' and my own opinion/perspective on abortions. And this information has served to inform me further on a related topic to reproduction/abortion. That is why.

I'm being vague because this topic is very controversial and I don't have the time or interest to get into it again. I just wanted to point out that this information is related and informative.

It's anecdotal, but...

[93 Escort Wagon]

I remember when my daughter was born. She was 9 weeks early, so she spent several weeks in the neonatal ICU. What was interesting (and maybe somewhat relevant) is that quite often when my wife spoke, our daughter would seem to turn her head towards the sound. My voice didn't seem to have the same effect, nor did the voices of the medical staff.

The nurses at the hospital thought it was "cute" and didn't seem all that surprised - so I guess I am rather surprised this stuff is apparently new info and not settled science.

Re:It's anecdotal, but...

[garcia]

I just went to a baby class where they demonstrated the power of the parents' voices over that of anyone else speaking to the baby. While two people compete voice wise for the baby's attention, the father will win out over strangers and the mother will win out over all.

Re:Genetics

[Emerssso]

Because vocal fold size determines a range of pitches available to the speaker, whereas phrase-level tone contours are language based and proportionate/relative. You can't genetically determine that any more than you can other aspects of a language's lexicon.

Makes Sense

[kitsunewarlock]

Makes sense. Even without an ear, the baby is basically living in a giant fluid filled sac connected only a couple feet away from the source of the noise. A person's body is basically one giant ear (hence why you can hear something you whisper or a bone in your foot crack when you stretch despite the fact no one around you can hear it).

Abhimanyu

[Anonymous Coward]

Ability of a fetus to learn in the womb has been part of Hindu mythology for a loooooong time.

Check out:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abhimanyu

Hindus have strict restricts on pregnant women because of this. Of course not everyone follows these, but it is generally the case to keep pregnant women in a pleasant and positive environment..

It is good to see that this has been scientifically validated.

Re:So... when?

[Anonymous Coward]

The mother chose to become pregnant, assuming there was no rape. I can't invite you in my house then shoot you for trespassing.

(And yes, I consider having sex consenting to become pregnant. You know damn well it can happen, if it would be a problem, keep your damn legs shut. And if you're male, and don't want to consent to becoming a father, then keep your damn pants zipped. This is a 100% effective method of birth control. [There are second-hand reports of it failing once about 2010 years ago, but I don't buy it...])

Re:Domestic violence

[lilomar]

Troll? Yes.
But - There is a certain poetic rhythm to the post.

When ladies become bored they begin talking.
It's babylonian. It does not even matter what they talk about.
When ladies become bored they begin talking.

It's sad when a potential artist turns to the dark side.

Re:So... when?

[dgatwood]

There's a difference between being pro-abortion rights and being pro-abortion. I support the right of assholes to have freedom of speech, even if it is hate speech against blacks, jews, or gays. That doesn't make me a KKK Nazi Republican.

This country is founded on the fundamental premise that we have freedom of religion, speech, etc., up to the point at which it directly harms others. The abortion debate is about the very complicated question of whether it harms another person or not. That's not an easy philosophical question to answer, and before anyone is qualified to answer that question, he or she must free himself or herself from the tendency to reply, "That's easy, my parents said..." or "That's easy, my preacher said..." or any other answer that comes easily. Such easy answers are almost always the wrong ones, as they are generally the end of thought on the subject rather than the beginning.

For example, the easy (but wrong) answers for how to fight abortion are: 1. sue to make it illegal, and 2. try to convince people not to have them. Suing, however, is unlikely to make any real progress. Convincing people not to have abortions is slightly better; it may save a few individual children while you are actively doing this work, but it is an extremely inefficient way to improve things because it requires eternal vigilance by a fairly large number of people to be effective to any significant degree.

By contrast, a much smarter answer is to contribute money to medical research to make it possible to sustain a fetus at progressively younger ages, eventually resulting in abortion being unnecessary, and eliminating any possible justification for abortion in the minds of even the staunchest abortion rights advocates. By answering in this way, your actions are the start of further thought and discussion instead of being dogmatic roadblocks to further thought. Further, instead of just reducing abortions, you're also doing something that helps humanity outside the context of abortion. Women who can't have kids could have kids, fetuses whose mothers die would not necessarily die, mothers who are diagnosed with cancer would no longer have to choose between chemotherapy and the lives of their children, women who are victims of rape or incest could give up their children for adoption and never have to endure childbirth for a child that was forced upon them, women who get pregnant when they are too young to safely bear a child would no longer be at serious risk, etc.

Think bigger. Don't think of abortion as a problem to be solved. Think of it as a bad solution to a wide range of problems that could be solved in other ways, then try to find other ways.

Re:So... when?

[Chibi Merrow]

and on the other side you have pro-life people who are against even the day after pill because a conception may have occurred.

Even as someone who's against abortion, I can't understand that opinion. The pill prevents implantation. A fertilized egg not properly implanting and therefore not becoming a viable embryo is, based on my understanding, a rather common occurrence in a woman's life. Hell, it seems nowadays we're damn lucky to even get successful pregnancies.

Define a time in a pregnancy when the fetus starts to develop a brain and possible self-awareness and just cut the line there.

I'm not sure that's something that can be scientifically determined... Psychologists and Cognitive Scientists have been studying what makes something sentient for longer than you or I have been around, and they don't seem to be any closer to having figured that out than when they started.

Though it would be significantly more ideal than the current determining factor: viability. 'Viability' changes as medical technology improves, with the date for a child surviving a pre-term birth slowly marching downwards. 24 weeks (6 months) is accepted as survivable, albeit with significant risk, with reports claiming successful deliveries at 21 weeks. We're on the threshold of second trimester deliveries being regularly survivable, and yet second trimester abortions are accepted as the baby is "not viable." I have no doubt that with the way medical technology is going, we'll eventually have the ability to produce entire artificial wombs for the gestation of children, where the mother does not even have to play a part other than the donation of an egg... What then? Does that modify our definition of viability? (Never mind the huge ethical can of worms opened by having artificial baby factories...)

I don't buy that a week or two old fetus is a "person" any more than a brain dead accident victim is, to whom it's legal to remove life support from and let die.

A friend of mine was a columnist in my Uni's newspaper and he actually used a similar example... "Should a family who's loved one is currently on life support and in a coma, upon being told by the attending physician that they expect the patient to be able to come off of life support and regain consciousness in three months, and then eventually go on to lead a normal fully functional life afterward, be allowed to have the patient removed from life support simply due to not wanting the financial burden? No? Then why is abortion legal?"

Re:Genetics

[MichaelSmith]

I have had exposure to this situation. My wife and her family are native Cantonese speakers but live in an English speaking country. In her brothers family there was a huge fight over whether their two kids would be raised as Cantonese or Mandarin speakers (their mother speaks Mandarin).

When I went to their place the kids would approach me and ask me to take them to the park, speaking in broken English. So I would take them out and as soon as we got out of earshot their English would become perfect and they would explode with conversation. More recently their mother took her daughter to swimming lessons. She apologised to the teacher about the poor state of her childs English. After the lesson the teacher told her that actually there is nothing wrong with that girls english.

Children soak up the language which is being used around them, regardless of their parents origin, native language or what is being used in the home. If a western family moved to Japan and hardly let the kids out of the house the kids would still become perfect Japanese speakers. I don't think genes have anything to do with it.

But the children often hide their language ability from their parents. They don't want their parents to feel bad about their children learning from sources outside the home.

Re:Genetics

[repapetilto]

Actually I will unconsciously start speaking in broken English if Im around other people who do it for long enough... so I dont think thats a phenomenon limited to childhood.

Re:So... when?

[MinistryOfTruthiness]

I don't understand the line-drawing. There is no line. Stop with the line drawing. You don't use magic numbers in your code, and you surely should use them to determine matters of life and death. If it came from humans and develops into a human, it's a human. Pigs don't develop into humans, nor do dogs, sheep, or monkeys. A human is a human at every stage of its development. No line.

The honest question each society must answer is: At what point in a human's life is it okay to murder them for your convenience?

Re:Genetics

[arminw]

...Actually I will unconsciously start speaking in broken English...

I once consciously spoke in broken English, while visiting Germany, even though I can speak German without any accent. The reason was that I wanted to get out of a traffic ticket and it worked.

Whose choice?

[tepples]

The chosen terminology by each group is pro-life and pro-choice. Respect it.

Do "pro-choice" platforms take into account the father's choice or the child's choice?

Re:So... when?

[MinistryOfTruthiness]

At least you're honest, and that was my point. We need to stop with the intellectual dishonesty of "it's not human until X weeks." It is human, it came from human, will be human, it doesn't magically become something else in between. If your priorities are consequence-free sex over someone else's life, that's your choice, and, while I personally think you should be psychologically evaluated for prioritizing your recreation over someone else's life, I can at least respect that you understand and accept the decision you're making.

Re:So... when?

[repapetilto]

Use of those terms also confuse the issue... it sounds as if some people are going around advocating forced abortions or something.. The truly correct terminology would be Pro-law-against abortion and Anti-Law-against abortion. If someone could figure out a way to make that more catchy noone would have an excuse for using the terms derived from political spin.

Re:Genetics

[FST777]

Hi, the Netherlands here.

You can abort until the 24th week of pregnancy. This line is drawn since with 25 weeks, the infant would have a decent chance of surviving when born.

I've seen my daughter (born 2 weeks ago) on a sonogram being 12 weeks old. Everything is there, alive and (in this case) wildly kicking. Almost every "pro abortionist" will tell you that it should be OK for a woman to end an unwanted pregnancy at 12 weeks.

DISCLAIMER: I don't know where I stand on this matter. I know how I feel about it, but I'm not completely able to rationalize it into a proper point of view.

Fish in a Barrel

[Nocuous]

And yes, I consider having sex consenting to become pregnant. You know damn well it can happen, if it would be a problem, keep your damn legs shut.

And yes, I consider driving on the highway consenting to be maimed and crippled for life, or killed. You know damn well it can happen, if it would be a problem, keep your damn car off the highway.

Too easy.

Re:Genetics

[iamacat]

Legality of abortion has nothing to do with the fetus being able to feel pain or hear words. From ultrasounds I think everyone can clearly see many behaviors we associate with being alive or being human. The question is weather anyone is willing to take responsibility for life, health and future of both the mother or the baby. Do we keep a mentally disturbed teenager in chains until she gives birth so that she can not possibly jump of the bridge or otherwise harm herself or the baby? Will anyone make sure that a severally mentally disabled child doesn't spend decades being abused and neglected in an institution after his/her parents pass away? Is government more qualified than prospective parents to decide what constitutes a quality of life worth winning.

Thus, although I believe that abortion (where there is otherwise a possibility of a life with happiness, dignity and without constant suffering) is a horrible thing, I also do not believe that a legal ban is any more humane. We need many solutions that will require others in the society to make sacrifices at least by paying taxes. For example, families with Down's child will often have their marriage and future of other children screwed if they don't have some part time place to drop off the child once in a while and get a break. Even with multitude of options, a few parents may still decide on abortion and they should be allowed to.

Re:Genetics

[repapetilto]

Well youre using telegraphic speech, only including the sounds most important in conveying your meaning. I think the reason for this is that it raises the signal to noise ratio by limiting the number of sounds the non-native speaker needs to decode, allowing them to fill in the missing pronouns, etc after youve said whatever it is youre saying, rather than doing it as your making the important sounds(the signal).

(the noise=processing of possible interpretations of that sound, the size of the set will vary inversely with how familiar you are with the language)

Re:Genetics

[Dachannien]

I'm confused, too, but maybe that's because I no speaka da English.

Re:So... when?

[snowgirl]

Uh...... hate to break it to you, but that chart is wrong. In at least the US, on-Demand abortions come with severe restrictions. Notably, they don't happen after the third-trimester.

Ok, as a girl, reading this the glaring point that needs to be made is... ALL abortions are illegal after the third trimester... because that means that the baby has been born.

You mean that on-demand abortions aren't allowed DURING the third trimester.