Words (and sounds) to learn by

Language study finds similarities between babies and birds

January 22, 1997
Web posted at: 5:00 p.m. EST

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(CNN) -- Babies and birds might not seem to have much in common, but scientists see a connection in how each learns to communicate. There appear to be similarities in the methods they use to distinguish individual words and sounds.

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As babies learn to talk, they have the same problem faced by anyone hearing a language they don't know: Words seem to run together, making it difficult to figure out where each word begins.

Baby talk

To find out how babies learn words, psychologists at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore devised an approach that repeats key words, such as cup, dog and bike.

First, young test subjects watch a videotape of a woman who speaks the words. Then, the babies are taken to another room where a flashing light gets their attention, followed by an audiotape of the same woman saying the same words.

The test subjects are still too young to know the meanings of the words, but the babies become so familiar with how the words sound they can pick them out, even when background voices are added, says Johns Hopkins Psychology Professor Peter Jusczyk.

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Studies have shown that babies as young as 7 and a half months consistently focus longer when they hear a voice saying words they have heard before.

Birds do it -- for a song

Learning research with birds has produced similar findings.

In a Johns Hopkins study, starlings placed in a test chamber peck on buttons that trigger the playing of a song. If they peck on the "right" song, food is dispensed immediately into the chamber.

If the birds pick the "wrong" song, they have to wait for the food, says Johns Hopkins researcher Timothy Gentner.

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Paying attention to sounds teaches birds how to discern a predator from a possible mate. For children, it's the building block for most human interaction.

 

Related sites:

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• Johns Hopkins University, Dept. of Psychology
• Johns Hopkins Psychology Professor Peter Jusczyk -This text-only site explains the research he and his students are doing. They're trying to determine how babies hear sounds and how that information is transformed into understanding language.
• Johns Hopkins Psychology Professor Stewart Hulse - This text-only site deals with research into how birds communicate.
• The Song Post - A site dedicated to the academic study of bird song.

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