Researchers have found that babies remained relaxed for twice as long when listening to a song compared to when listening to speech.
The study shows babies can get ‘carried away’ by music, suggesting they have the mental capacity to be enthralled by it like adults.
Professor Isabelle Peretz, from the University of Montreal said: ‘Many studies have looked at how singing and speech affect infants’ attention, but we wanted to know how they affect a baby’s emotional self-control.
“Emotional self-control is obviously not developed in infants, and we believe singing helps babies and children develop this capacity.
“Although infant distress signals typically prompt parental comforting interventions, they induce frustration and anger in some at-risk parents, leading to insensitive responding and, in the worst cases, to infant neglect or abuse.”
For the study, 30 healthy babies aged between six and nine months listened to recordings of baby talk, adult-directed speech and music.
Professor Peretz added that “Our findings leave little doubt about the efficacy of singing nursery rhymes for maintaining infants’ composure for extended periods.
“Even in the relatively sterile environment of the testing room – black walls, dim illumination, no toys, and no human visual or tactile stimulation – the sound of a woman singing prolonged infants’ positive or neutral states and inhibited distress.”
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