Buzz
Recent research offers scientific validation for the use of lullabies to soothe irritable infants.
Published in the journal Infancy by experts from the University of Montreal and the University of Toronto Mississauga, the study involved two experiments. In the first, babies aged 7 to 10 months were exposed to recordings of speech (including both baby talk and adult-directed speech) and songs in Turkish, a language unfamiliar to them. The second experiment replicated the process in French, a language the infants recognized.
Parents were seated behind their babies as the recordings played, continuing until the infants displayed signs of distress, such as crying. Results showed that, regardless of language, the babies remained calm longer when listening to music. For Turkish songs, they stayed calm for nine minutes, compared to four minutes for speech. Similarly, in French, they remained calm for six minutes while listening to songs.
“Even in the stark environment of the testing room—featuring black walls, dim lighting, no toys, and no visual or tactile interaction—the sound of a woman singing extended the infants’ calm or neutral states and reduced distress,” explains study co-author Isabelle Peretz of the University of Montreal in a press release. “These results highlight the inherent value of music, especially nursery rhymes, which resonate with our preference for simplicity and repetition.”
You might want to try this theory yourself with these eerie lullabies from various cultures around the globe.
