Singing calms baby longer than talking

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2015-10/uom-scb102715.php

Public Release: 27-Oct-2015
Singing calms baby longer than talking
New study shows that babies become distressed twice as fast when listening to speech compared to song
University of Montreal

In a new study from the University of Montreal, infants remained calm twice as long when listening to a song, which they didn't even know, as they did when listening to speech. "Many studies have looked at how singing and speech affect infants' attention, but we wanted to know how they affect a baby's emotional self-control," explained Professor Isabelle Peretz, of the university's Center for Research on Brain, Music and Language. "Emotional self-control is obviously not developed in infants, and we believe singing helps babies and children develop this capacity." The study, recently published in Infancy, involved thirty healthy infants aged between six and nine months.

Humans are in fact naturally enraptured by music. In adults and older children, this "entrainment" is displayed by behaviours such as foot-tapping, head-nodding, or drumming. "Infants do not synchronize their external behaviour with the music, either because they lack the requisite physical or mental ability," Peretz explained. "Part of our study was to determine if they have the mental ability. Our finding shows that the babies did get carried away by the music, which suggests they do have the mental capacity to be "entrained"."

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