BABIES REMEMBER POSITIVE EXPERIENCES OVER NEGATIVE ONES
Research from scientists at Brigham Young University, published in Infant Behavior and Development, found that 5-month-olds remembered experiencing positive emotions far more than negative ones. The purpose of this study was to examine the behavioral effects of adults’ faces on 5-month-olds’ visual recognition memory. Five-month-olds were exposed to a dynamic happy, angry, or neutral affective […]
BABIES CAN TELL HOW BADLY YOU WANT SOMETHING: PART ONE
According to a new study from MIT and Harvard University, babies as young as 10 months can assess how much someone values a particular goal by observing how hard they are willing to work to achieve it. This ability requires integrating information about both the costs of obtaining a goal and the benefit gained by […]
BABIES RETAIN THEIR EARLY EXPOSURE TO FOREIGN LANGUAGES
Babies may be more language-savvy than scientists thought: A study of people who were adopted as babies suggests that infants younger than 6 months may grasp crucial abstract information about their native tongue. They seem to store this information for years even if they don’t hear their native language in the interim. In the study, […]
Baby Talk Words with Repeated Sounds Help Infants Learn Language
A study suggests that babies find it easier to learn words with repetitive syllables rather than mixed sounds. Assessments of language learning in 18-month-olds suggest that children are better at grasping the names of objects with repeated syllables, over words with non-identical syllables. Researchers say the study may help explain why some words or phrases, […]
SECURE ATTACHMENT
Keep your life simple and serenity will follow. Like a small country with little need for supersonic travel, a simple life has little need for tension and stress. Give your children yourself and the need for things will be minimal. —Vimala McClure from The Tao of Motherhood Research shows that simply touching, or […]
What Poverty Does to the Young Brain
The brain’s foundation, frame, and walls are built in the womb. As an embryo grows into a fetus, some of its dividing cells turn into neurons, arranging themselves into layers and forming the first synapses, the organ’s electrical wiring. Four or five months into gestation, the brain’s outermost layer, the cerebral cortex, begins to develop […]
THE SCENT OF A BABY BRINGS ABOUT CHANGES IN THE MOTHER’S BRAIN
A new study suggests that the scent of a baby may be the key to helping them deal with the first few months of motherhood. Giving birth rewires the female brain so that the odor of an infant fires up the part which keeps people rational, thoughtful and caring for others. Researchers from Nagasaki University […]
How to Help Infants Learn and Remember
A nap after learning helps a baby consolidate its learning and memories, a new study finds. The study suggests that a flexible napping schedule could help infants learn. Dr. Jane Herbert, one of the study’s authors, said, “These findings are particularly interesting to both parents and educationalists because they suggest that the optimal time for […]
The Basic Emotion that Makes Infants Remember What They’ve Seen
A new study finds that babies can remember what they’ve seen if it is paired with a positive emotion, but nothing otherwise. The research, carried out by psychologists at Brigham Young University, is the first to look at how being exposed to different emotions affects the memory of infants. The researchers tested the effect of […]
Naps Boost Babies’ Memory
A new study suggests that babies process and preserve memories during those many naps they take during the day. Study author Sabine Seehagen, a child and adolescent psychology researcher with Ruhr University Bochum in Germany said, “We discovered that sleeping shortly after learning helps infants to retain memories over extended periods of time. In both […]