THE HYPOTHESIS
Babies whose emotional state becomes negative during the exercise will often employ coping techniques, such as looking at their parent, sucking on fingers, closing their eyes, hitting or banging the toy, or attempting to communicate verbally or nonverbally with their parent. In the first part of the experiment, in which you do not interact with your baby, coping techniques that include looking away from the toy or self-soothing are predicted to be the most effective in calming him, while withdrawal behaviors, such as trying to get away from the toy, are predicted to increase stress. In the second part of the experiment, in which you are permitted to interact with your baby, engaging with your baby by calling his name and trying to distract his attention away from the toy is predicted to be the most effective at calming him. In contrast, merely soothing your baby using gentle touches or vocalizations may actually increase your baby’s stress.
THE RESEARCH
In a 2004 study involving 6-month-old babies and their mothers, researchers recorded indicators of babies’ emotional states and their behaviors in the first part of the experiment, during which their mothers were instructed not to interact. They then recorded the same information in the second part of the experiment, when the mothers could interact, as well as information about maternal responses. They found that many babies were able to self-regulate—that is, perform actions that prevented extreme distress—and that their mother’s interaction also helped them regulate their distress levels. Among the most effective coping strategies in both sessions was looking away from the toy, and in the second session, when mothers assisted their babies to focus away from the toy by distracting them, it enhanced their child’s ability to regulate distress levels.
Before the 2004 study, several other studies had examined babies’ ability to regulate their behavior. For instance, a 1995 study of 5- and 10-month-old infants found that the effectiveness of certain self-regulating behaviors varied based on whether distress was decreasing or increasing. And a 1999 study found that maternal engagement helped toddlers regulate their distress levels. This most recent study added to that body of research by establishing that by 6 months, a significant number of infants were able to calm themselves in response to the toy, and when mothers were involved, that ability was enhanced. It also found that several specific infant and maternal behaviors were correlated with a rise or fall in distress levels, not only on their own but in combination with each other.
THE TAKEAWAY
Your baby is entering a transitional time in his emotional development. Until this point, he largely depended on you to comfort him and talk him down when he became upset. Now, he’s starting to acquire the ability to deal with distressing situations on his own. On the one hand, you may feel proud that he’s growing more independent. On the other hand, you may feel freaked out. There will be plenty of occasions when you’ll have to back off and let him work things out for himself—but right now? So soon? Ah, not to worry. Clearly, in this transitional stage, a little help from Mom or Dad still makes a difference, so feel free to step in and distract him. Fewer tears are better for everyone involved.
Don’t Try This at Home
Most experiments on babies are conducted according to strict ethical standards, but that hasn’t always been the case.
In 1920, behavioral researchers John B. Watson and Rosalie Rayner conducted experiments on a 9-month-old baby dubbed Little Albert, in which they attempted to condition the boy to fear an animal by making a loud, scary sound whenever the animal was presented.
At the beginning of the experiments, the boy demonstrated no innate fear of a white rat, but he did become upset whenever the researchers made a loud clanging sound behind his back by striking a steel bar with a hammer.
During several sessions with the boy, the researchers made the clanging sound whenever he touched the rat, and soon the boy became fearful of the rat even when the scary sound was discontinued.
According to the researchers, a month after the initial conditioning took place, Little Albert still demonstrated fear when he saw the rat as well as other similar-looking creatures and objects.
Soon after, before his fear could be deconditioned, the boy’s mother withdrew him from the experiments, and nothing is known about how long his fear persisted.
20
Propulsive Perceptions
Age range: 5–8 months
Experiment complexity: Complex
Research area: Perception
THE EXPERIMENT
Conduct this experiment twice: once around 5 or 6 months, before your baby has started crawling, and once around 8 months, after she has started crawling. You’ll need to show your baby two similar toys, one of which has the appearance of being self-propelled (being able to start and stop motion on its own). One way to give a toy this appearance is to glue a small magnet to its base and place it on a poster board or other thin surface, then use another magnet underneath the surface to guide the toy around. Once you’ve gathered the toys (small plastic dollar-store figurines work well) and set up the magnets, briefly familiarize your baby with the self-propelled toy by showing her how it begins at rest, moves along the surface, seemingly on its own, then stops at the other end. Then familiarize her with the non-self-propelled toy. Let her see the toy at rest, then let her see you grasp the toy and push it gently to the other end of the surface. After a couple of repetitions, take a short break, and then alternately show her the self-propelled toy at rest and the non-self-propelled toy at rest. Use a stopwatch to determine how long she looks at each.
THE HYPOTHESIS
Whether your baby looks longer at the self-propelled toy or the non-self-propelled toy will vary, depending on whether she has begun crawling.
THE RESEARCH
A 2006 experiment involving 7-month-old infants found that they were able to discriminate between objects that were seemingly self-propelled and those that were set in motion by an outside force. After being shown the toys in motion, the babies looked significantly longer at the toy that appeared to be self-propelled. A series of similar experiments were conducted in 2008 to test the hypothesis that the onset of crawling affects an infant’s ability to discriminate between objects that are self-propelled and those that are not. In these experiments, looking times at the two objects differed between 5- and 6-month-old babies who had not yet begun to crawl and 8-month-old babies who had begun to crawl. In fact, looking times differed even among crawlers and noncrawlers who were the same age (7 months).
The ability to distinguish between objects that are and are not self-propelling is a valuable skill for a baby to acquire because it’s a pretty reliable indicator of whether something is alive. This research shows that a baby’s own ability to self-propel (by crawling) appears to be related to her ability to grasp the fundamental distinction between animate and inanimate objects. It also lends further support to the more general theory that a relationship exists between a baby’s ability to perceive and process an action and her ability to perform that action herself.
THE TAKEAWAY
Your baby’s first successful attempts at unassisted forward motion do more than signal that it’s time to secure the baby gates and move your valuables to higher ground. They also produce changes in the mind itself, creating a sort of feedback loop of developmental changes, with the mind and body trying to keep pace with each other. So, let’s review: Your baby is now mobile and she will crawl toward things she’s interested in. Your baby can now tell the difference between animate and inanimate objects and is more interested in animate objects. Expect this to be a scary time for the family cat.
21
Body Stretches
Age range: 5–9 months
Experiment complexity: Simple
Research area: Cognitive development
THE EXPERIMENT
Show your baby the two pictures on the next page, side by side. One picture shows a woman with nor
mal body proportions. The other picture is a copy of the first, but the neck and torso have been stretched and the legs have been shortened. Make note of which picture your baby spends more time looking at.
THE HYPOTHESIS
At 5 months old, your baby will not show a preference for either picture. But at 9 months old, he will look longer at the normal picture than at the distorted one.
THE RESEARCH
Although babies seem to understand the structure of the face early in life, it takes longer for them to understand the structure of the body.
For instance, in a 2010 study, 5-month-olds and 9-month-olds were shown side-by-side pictures of a young woman. One of the photos was unaltered, and the other was digitally manipulated to change the proportions of the neck, torso, and legs. The 5-month-olds showed no preference (based on looking times) for either photo, but the 9-month-olds showed a preference, albeit a slight one, for the unaltered picture.
A 2004 study on babies’ perception of human body structure used images of bodies with scrambled parts, such as arms extending from the head, and found that it wasn’t until somewhere between 12 and 15 months that the babies began to pick up on the abnormality. However, the 2010 study’s results suggest that by 9 months old, babies are able to recognize the normal proportions of the human body. The researchers suggest that one reason babies might learn body part proportions before they learn body part arrangements is because body parts can move around (for instance, you can put your hand above your head in a way that might look like the hand is extending outward from it), whereas body part proportions are less changeable.
THE TAKEAWAY
It’s no wonder your baby gets to know your face before he gets to know your body. He spends a lot of close-up face-to-face time with you and other caregivers, and not as much time looking at your body from afar. Still, before his first birthday, he’ll have picked up on at least some information about body structure. You can help him get to know bodies better by pointing to your own body parts and labeling them, and showing him where on his body those parts are located (“This is my elbow, and this is your elbow”). Won’t be long before he’s able to act out “Head, Shoulders, Knees, and Toes.”
22
A Cappella Strikes a Chord
Age range: 5–11 months
Experiment complexity: Moderate
Research area: Musical development
THE EXPERIMENT
For this experiment, you’ll need two recordings: One in which a child sings a song without any musical accompaniment and one in which a child sings a song with musical accompaniment.
During the experiment, you’ll use a technique that is intended to measure how much an auditory stimulus, such as a sound or a song, interests a baby. It’s called the head-turn preference procedure, and it works like this: Direct your baby to look at a picture or pattern in front of her. When she looks at the picture, you’ll begin playing a recorded song on your computer, stereo, or other music device. When she looks away from the picture, pause the song. When she looks back at the picture, resume the song.
Conduct about a dozen trials, alternating the no-accompaniment and with-accompaniment recordings. At the beginning of each trial, direct your baby to look at the picture in front of her, and begin playing the song. Then time how long she continues looking and end the trial (and stop the music) when she’s looked away for two seconds or more.
THE HYPOTHESIS
Once you add up the listening times for each of the two recordings and average them out, you’ll find that your baby prefers the song with no musical accompaniment (based on listening time).
THE RESEARCH
In a 2009 study, children in three age groups—5, 8, and 11 months—listened to two recordings. In the first, a 9-year-old girl sang a children’s song a cappella. In the second, the same recording was supplemented with instrumental accompaniment. Across all age groups, the majority of babies (58 percent) listened longer to the a cappella version; 28 percent listened longer to the version with instrumental accompaniment; and 13 percent showed no preference.
The researchers offer several possible explanations for the babies’ preference for vocal music without instrumental accompaniment. It may be that babies’ interest in the human voice—which has been well-established in other studies—is so great that the instrumental sounds just get in the way. Alternatively, cognitive limitations at this stage of development may lead the babies to prefer simpler auditory stimuli over more complex stimuli. This explanation is supported by a 2006 study, which found that babies prefer a song played by a single instrument such as a piano to the same song played by an orchestra.
THE TAKEAWAY
The researchers caution music educators that even though babies appear to listen longer to unaccompanied music than to accompanied music, that does not mean that they will not benefit from exposure to a variety of types of music. They recommend tailoring your musical selections to your objectives. If you’re trying to teach your baby a simple children’s song, you might be better off without a backup band. But if you merely want to teach your child to appreciate music, then break out the classical, Motown, Latin, jazz, hip-hop, space disco—whatever you’re into, except Ke$ha.
23
Natural Interference
Age range: 6–8 months
Experiment complexity: Moderate
Research area: Language development
THE EXPERIMENT
In a quiet room with few distractions, face your baby and repeat the word boo in a slightly drawn-out, falling intonation until she looks away, or until about 15 seconds have elapsed. Do this several times, until she begins to lose interest. Then, switch to the word goo, in the same intonation, and note whether her looking time is longer.
A couple of days later, perform the same experiment again, but this time, as you are conducting the experiment, play a recording of nature sounds that is loud enough to be slightly distracting but not loud enough to affect your baby’s ability to hear the words you say.
THE HYPOTHESIS
When the experiment is conducted in a quiet setting with no distracting sounds, your baby is likely to look at you longer when you say goo, indicating that she has recognized the switch to a new sound. But when the experiment is conducted in the presence of distracting sounds, she is not likely to notice the switch.
THE RESEARCH
Infants in a 2008 study were placed into one of three groups. The first group was designated the “quiet” group. They were familiarized with boo in a quiet setting, and the switch to the word goo was also made in a quiet setting. The second group was designated the “distraction” group. They were familiarized with boo while distracting nature sounds played, and the switch to the word goo was also made while the nature sounds played. The third group was the “distraction-quiet” group. They were familiarized with boo while the nature sounds were played, but the nature sounds were removed before the switch to goo.
The researchers found that the quiet group had significantly longer looking times when they heard goo, indicating that they were able to recognize that a switch had been made. But babies in the distraction and distraction-quiet groups did not demonstrate longer looking times, indicating that they did not recognize that a switch had been made.
It may seem obvious that the presence of a distracting sound would make it more difficult for a baby to focus on a speech sound, and indeed, previous research had shown that infants are particularly susceptible to the “cocktail party effect,” in which a number of competing sounds make it more difficult to focus on and comprehend any specific sound.
Yet despite the seemingly obvious result, an important conclusion can be drawn from this research that had previously been untested: Even when the distracting sound is not speech and occupies different auditory frequencies than the spoken words, it disrupts the baby’s ability to process the speech and recognize the difference between the syllables. A
dults are able to use a variety of acoustical clues to filter out background sounds, but it appears that babies in the 6- to 8-month-old range have not yet acquired that ability.
THE TAKEAWAY
Time for a little empathy exercise: Imagine you’re in a foreign country where you don’t know the language, and you’re trying to pick up any little tidbit you can. Now imagine that as you’re listening to one conversation, 20 other conversations are going on around you. Distracting, isn’t it? That’s what it’s like for your little one in the presence of background noise, so when you’re interacting with her, turn off the TV, turn off the radio, and make it as easy as possible for her to listen to you and only you.
24
The Gestation of Gestures
Age range: 6–9 months
Experiment complexity: Simple
Research area: Motor skills and language development
Experimenting with Babies Page 5
