Newborns are able to identify words

Before you learn a baby's words, you must first select them from continuous speech. However, there are no clear word boundaries in the speech, ”said ScienceDaily.com, a study published in Developmental Science.

Earlier studies have shown that by the middle of the first year of life, babies solve this problem, but they have not yet known that segmentation skills are born with us, or with speech hearing and brain development.

A European research group - University of Liverpool, University of Manchester and Italian SISSA Research Institute and French Neurospin Center scientists - have recorded newborns, with four meaningless words in their syllables. Using the method of near infrared spectroscopy, it was determined which parts of the brain were activated while listening.

In the three-day dolls, two mechanisms have been discovered that allow you to select words from the sound stream. One is the melody of speech, which helps to determine how the word begins and ends. The other is the statistics of the language, which is used to calculate how often the sounds are placed side by side in a word.

Discovery is key to getting to know the first step in language learning. “The study highlights how good the sensors are in the infants, and how much information they absorb. It is important for parents to know how the baby is watching them, ”said Alissa Ferry, a researcher at the University of Manchester.

(Source: marmalade.co.uk; MTI | Picture: pixabay.com)