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Babies Bounce to Mamas' Beat

Posted on: Monday, 20 June 2005, 15:00 CDT

The way you bounce your baby when listening to music may influence her dance floor future, molding her into a future salsa lover, fox-trot fanatic or waltzing wonder.

That's because the way you move your baby, as you shimmy and grind around the house, may affect the development of his musical preferences and interpretations, according to a report in the journal Science.

"Our findings provide evidence that the experience of body movement plays an important role in musical rhythm perception," said Laurel Trainor, a psychologist at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario.

For years, Trainor has observed parents all over the world physically interacting with their children while singing to them or listening to music with them.

They dance with their babies, rock them back and forth, and play with their hands and feet in a rhythmic manner.

Trainor wondered if these movements might influence a child's musical development.

She and graduate student Jessica Phillips-Silver designed a three- part experiment to find out.

When people dance or move to music, they generally are given clues about when to shake and bop: Accented parts of the tune will be louder, signaling when it's time to thrust your hips or kick up your heels.

But when a musical score has no physical accents to help cue the listener what's referred to as an ambiguous rhythm the beat is somewhat open to interpretation. Some people might tap their foot every three beats, others every two.

Trainor and Phillips-Silver decided to see if a mother's movement during an ambiguous rhythm pattern would dictate her child's preferences.

So, in their first experiment, the researchers had 16 babies who were 7 months old listen to a two-minute repetition of an ambiguous rhythm pattern with their moms.

Half of the babies were bounced every two beats (ONE-two, ONE- two, ONE-two); the other half every three (ONE-two-three, ONE-two- three).

After the training session, the babies were tested for their listening preferences.

In order to do this, the researchers set up two listening stations equipped with bright lights.

When the baby looked at a specific light, a rhythm pattern that featured an accent every two beats was played. When they looked at the other light, the triple-beat rhythm was broadcast.

Trainor and Phillips-Silver found the babies gazed longer at the light that triggered the rhythm they were exposed to in training.

But maybe the babies weren't cuing into their mothers' movement at all. Perhaps, thought the researchers, they were picking up visual cues instead.

Babies' preferences

So they repeated the experiment, but this time, they blindfolded the babies while they were being bounced.

After removing the blindfolds and exposing the babies to the listening stations again, the infants still preferred the rhythms they were bounced to.

Finally, just to leave no doubt that movement was the basis for preference, the researchers repeated the experiments but without physical contact between babies and mothers. This time, the infants watched their moms bounce but they themselves were not moved.

Very clever kind of study'

The result: No preference for either rhythm.

"It's a very clever kind of study," said David Lewkowicz, a psychology professor at Florida Atlantic University, whose own research also shows that stimulating multiple senses is important for brain development.

"When babies are learning about their world, we should never lose sight of the fact that they are learning in a . . . multisensory context."

Frances Rauscher, a psychologist at the University of Wisconsin- Oshkosh, agreed.

She said the research adds further evidence that infants are not learning one sense at a time, as influential infant psychologist Jean Piaget had believed. Instead, these connections start very early.

"It also tells us something about the way we learn about music," she said.

The physical interactions between mother and child are very important.

So, whether your child becomes a William Hung the infamously off- beat "American Idol" contestant or a Fred Astaire, in part, will depend upon some of these early dancing experiences.

Although Trainor added she has never tested anyone who couldn't keep a beat.

The Associated Press contributed to this report. On the Net: Audio samples of beat patterns used in the tests are available at: www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/308/5727/1430/DC1

Copyright 2005, Journal Sentinel Inc. All rights reserved. (Note: This notice does not apply to those news items already copyrighted and received through wire services or other media.)

Source: Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

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