Babies learn a complex language faster than adults
Last reviewed: 23.04.2024
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Everyone knows the amazing ability of young children to quickly learn languages. But how do they do it? After all, kids who have not even a year can not read, write or know the rules.
As it turned out, already at an early age, children are able to determine the boundaries of words by indirect indicators. Scientists from the Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences in Leipzig identified the ability of babies at the age of three months to automatically detect and study the complex probabilities of following syllables in the spoken language.
For comparison, adults are able to identify such transitions only if they are directly searched.
The conducted research confirms the possibility of studying foreign languages in early childhood.
The speed and ease with which young children learn the basics of the language, affects parents and scientists.
Of course, many people usually assume that the study of complex languages is only amenable to an adult, and it will be difficult for children to perceive grammar and to master the vocabulary of the language. However, scientists Jutta Müller, Angela Friderichi and Claudia Mennel found that children outperform adults in language learning.
Specialists conducted an experiment and within twenty minutes pronounced the flow of syllables to children, while measuring their reaction with the help of electroencephalography.
When the experts spoke a polysyllabic word and deliberately made mistakes, the device recorded the children's reaction, which indicated that the kids recognized this violation.
Also, experts note that when the emotional coloring of the word changed, namely one syllable, for example, scientists pronounced it higher, those children who reacted to changes in tonality could detect the connection between syllables faster than others.
In the course of research, scientists involved adults in the experiment and asked them to perform a similar task. Subjects demonstrated a reaction to the violation of the connected chain of syllables. Dr. Mueller and his colleagues concluded that, apparently, the ability of automatic recognition, like in children, in adults is gradually lost.
"It seemed particularly interesting to us that a small group of adults who participated in the experiments also demonstrated an instantaneous reaction to changes in pitch in words," the study authors say.
Thanks to these data, it will be possible to study in more detail the system of studying and understanding the language in infants at an early stage of development.
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