'Parentese' Is Truly a Lingua Franca, Global Study Says
In an ambitious cross-cultural study, researchers found that adults around the world talk and sing to babies the same way.
We've all seen it, we've all cringed, we've all done it ourselves: talk to a baby like it's, you know, a baby.
"Ooo, hello baby!" you say, your voice singing like that of a very accommodating Walmart employee. Baby is completely taken aback by your unintelligible cooing and cheeky smile, but "baby so cuuuuuute!" Singing baby talk — more technically known as “parentais” — seems to be nearly universal for humans everywhere. In the largest study of its kind, more than 40 scientists helped collect and analyze 1,615 voice recordings from 410 parents on six continents, in 18 languages from diverse communities: rural and urban, isolated and cosmopolitan, internet-savvy and out of the network. network, from hunter-gatherers in Tanzania to city dwellers in Beijing.
The findings, recently published in the journal Nature Human Behavior, showed that in each of these cultures, the the way parents spoke and sang to their children differed from the way they communicated with adults - and that these differences were deeply similar across groups.
"We tend to talk in this higher tone, high variability, like, 'Ohh, heeelloo, you're a baaybee!' said Courtne y Hilton, a psychologist at Yale University's Haskins Laboratories and lead author of the study. Cody Moser, a graduate student in cognitive science at the University of California, Merced, and the other lead author, added, "When people tend to produce lullabies or talk to their babies, they tend to do the same. ”
The results suggest that baby talk and baby song serve a function independent of cultural and social forces. They offer a starting point for future research on babies and, to some extent, address the lack of diverse representation in psychology. Making cross-cultural statements about human behavior requires studies in many different societies. Now there's a big one.
"I'm probably the author with the most articles on this topic so far, and this blows my mind "said Greg Bryant, a cognitive scientist at the University of California, Los Angeles, who was not associated with the new research. "Anywhere you go in the world, where people talk to babies, you hear these sounds."
In an ambitious cross-cultural study, researchers found that adults around the world talk and sing to babies the same way.
We've all seen it, we've all cringed, we've all done it ourselves: talk to a baby like it's, you know, a baby.
"Ooo, hello baby!" you say, your voice singing like that of a very accommodating Walmart employee. Baby is completely taken aback by your unintelligible cooing and cheeky smile, but "baby so cuuuuuute!" Singing baby talk — more technically known as “parentais” — seems to be nearly universal for humans everywhere. In the largest study of its kind, more than 40 scientists helped collect and analyze 1,615 voice recordings from 410 parents on six continents, in 18 languages from diverse communities: rural and urban, isolated and cosmopolitan, internet-savvy and out of the network. network, from hunter-gatherers in Tanzania to city dwellers in Beijing.
The findings, recently published in the journal Nature Human Behavior, showed that in each of these cultures, the the way parents spoke and sang to their children differed from the way they communicated with adults - and that these differences were deeply similar across groups.
"We tend to talk in this higher tone, high variability, like, 'Ohh, heeelloo, you're a baaybee!' said Courtne y Hilton, a psychologist at Yale University's Haskins Laboratories and lead author of the study. Cody Moser, a graduate student in cognitive science at the University of California, Merced, and the other lead author, added, "When people tend to produce lullabies or talk to their babies, they tend to do the same. ”
The results suggest that baby talk and baby song serve a function independent of cultural and social forces. They offer a starting point for future research on babies and, to some extent, address the lack of diverse representation in psychology. Making cross-cultural statements about human behavior requires studies in many different societies. Now there's a big one.
"I'm probably the author with the most articles on this topic so far, and this blows my mind "said Greg Bryant, a cognitive scientist at the University of California, Los Angeles, who was not associated with the new research. "Anywhere you go in the world, where people talk to babies, you hear these sounds."
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