Words play an important role in brain development even before little ones begin to speak. For three-month old babies, words influence more than other sounds, including musical tones.
Alissa Ferry, Susan Hespos and Sandra Waxman from the psychology department at the Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences have a new study being published in the March/April edition of the Child Development journal.
In their study, 50 babies all aged three months were divided into two groups. One group was shown pictures of fish accompanied by words while the other group was shown pictures of fish accompanied by a beeping sound.
Later on, the same babies were shown an image of a new fish along with an image of a dinosaur to measure how much time they looked at each picture. Babies who had seen the photo along with words looked longer at the fish image, showing that they had categorized the fish in their mind.
Susan Hespos, associate professor of psychology and one of the study authors said, "For infants as young as three months of age, words exert a special influence that supports the ability to form a category. These findings offer the earliest evidence to date for a link between words and object categories."
Previous studies have shown that even 12-month old babies can understand the complex thoughts of adults.
It is thought that babies listen to conversations when they are in utero and are born recognizing their parent’s accent.