August 26, 2025 • 39 mins
Babies! We’ve all been one, and some of us have them. But did you know that baby talk serves an important purpose? Or that babies can fake tears to get attention? Today Mango and producer Gabe dig into some big science about tiny humans. Plus: What are zusers and bofels? Only a well-rested baby can answer that!
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:11):
Hey, everyone, it's Mango here, and I want to tell
you about another podcast I think you're going to enjoy
so much. It's called Candy Is Dandy, the world's only
podcast devote entirely to reviewing candy. Each episode features a
deep dive into a different candy with history, games, taste tests,
hilarious guests, and the kind of super nerdy facts we
(00:31):
at Part Time Genius appreciate so much, like where the
name Snickers comes from and why butterfingers has a link
to the atomic bomb. It is smart, it is funny.
It makes me nostalgic for all kinds of treats I
remember from my very own childhood. So I really hope
you'll check it out. Find Candy Is Dandy, the candy
(00:52):
review podcast wherever you get your podcasts. You're listening to
Part Time Genius, the production of Kaleidoscope and iHeartRadio. Guess what, Gabe,
what's that?
Speaker 2 (01:09):
Mango?
Speaker 1 (01:10):
Do you know that babies aren't afraid of heights until
after they've started crawling?
Speaker 2 (01:15):
Really, so you could go hang gliding with a three
month old and they wouldn't even bat.
Speaker 1 (01:20):
An eye apparently. I mean, there are lots of reasons
why you don't want to go hang gliding with a
three month old, but your baby's fear of heights isn't
one of them. According to researchers, babies only start to
fear heights around nine months or so, typically when they
crawl to the edge of a staircase for the first time,
or when they're peeking over the side at their changing
(01:41):
table or something like that. But up until that point,
a baby might express interest in a ledge or think
it's amusing, you're curious, but they won't actually be scared of.
Speaker 2 (01:50):
It, which is like very scary when you think about it.
But I am curious though, Like why would learning to
crawl be you know, this big game changer for all
of this, Like why is that what makes babies afraid
of heights?
Speaker 1 (02:04):
Well, according to new scientists, it's because of how our
brains change when we first start to move ourselves around
in different spaces. So when that happens, we suddenly begin
to process information that we never paid attention to before,
like what we see in the periphery and how that
visual information can be used to keep ourselves steady and balanced.
So when a baby starts moving around, suddenly they're learning
(02:26):
how to navigate a visual world made of solid, steady surfaces.
In contrast, the prospect of crawling out into thin air
doesn't really make any sense, and the result is that
a drop off now becomes a very scary thing to them.
But that's just one of the recent developments of baby
science that I learned about this week. And I know
we've both got a ton we're excited to share about babies,
(02:47):
So let's dive in. Hey, their podcast listeners, welcome to
(03:11):
part time Genius. I am mongishit together, and since Will
is away this week, I am joined by our good
pal Gabe Lucier. And on the other side of that
soundproof glass wearing a shirt that says baby talk will
get You Nowhere, that's our friend and producer Dylan Pagan.
And I know he's just wearing the shirt to stay
on theme with today's show, but it does leave me
(03:32):
with a few questions.
Speaker 2 (03:34):
Yeah, yeah, you mean, like, why do they make that
shirt in adult sizes?
Speaker 1 (03:39):
Exactly? That is the first of many questions I have.
Speaker 2 (03:42):
All Right, well, I hate to be like T shirt police,
but the thing about that shirt, baby talk will get
you Nowhere, the sentiment is actually false, Like there's good
reason to think that speaking to your baby in a
cutees voice isn't as silly as it sounds, and in fact,
it may even help with length which learning, or at
least that's the takeaway I got from this twenty seventeen
(04:04):
study I read this week from the Princeton University Baby Lab,
which is a real thing. Apparently, the researchers there found
that women who spoke a wide array of ten different
languages all used roughly the same timber when speaking to
infants in a cutesy baby voice. And so the implication
is that baby talk might be a kind of universal communication,
(04:25):
one that mothers and fathers both used to connect with
their babies, and it's also a way to encourage them to,
you know, try speaking for themselves.
Speaker 1 (04:33):
That is really interesting because I feel like we also
use the same sing songy speech patterns when we're talking
to dogs or cats or whatever, and I wonder like,
are we unconsciously trying to teach them to speak as well.
Speaker 2 (04:47):
Yeah, I mean it could be. I would love that.
But the other option I read about is that we
use baby talk anytime we feel like we're speaking to
someone who doesn't know our language. So babies doll people
from a different country. If we think someone can't understand us,
we instinctively turn on the baby talk.
Speaker 1 (05:06):
Oh that's really interesting and it makes you wonder if
it actually works, Like, do dogs respond better to baby
talk than to our normal voices?
Speaker 2 (05:14):
Yeah, it's funny because even though we use baby talk
for animals of all ages, the study I read found
that puppies were the only ones that responded more strongly
to the use of baby talk the adult dogs in
the study. They had like the same level of response
no matter how their owners talked.
Speaker 1 (05:31):
So, just to recap, Dylan's baby talk will get you
know where shirt is completely false from the perspective of babies, humans,
and dogs alike, but accurate when applied to adults of
either species. Do I have that right?
Speaker 2 (05:44):
Yeah? I think that's the gist of it for anyone
keeping track.
Speaker 1 (05:46):
Yeah, I am glad we cleared it up. And when
you think about it, it's kind of a nice reminder
of just how strange and new everything in the world
must seem to a baby, because those early years are
almost nothing but constant learning, figuring out how to move
their bodies, how to engage with objects and people, how
to understand and use language, and you know, it seems
so basic to us as adults, but there's a lot
(06:09):
of complexity to these processes once you start to break
them down. And that's really what we're doing today. We
are exploring how babies perceive the world and how they're
affected by it.
Speaker 2 (06:18):
Yeah, exactly. And since we started with baby talk, I
actually want to take a minute to look at the
other side of that, which is the way that babies
talk to us. So most people tend to think that
when babies start talking, they're just imitating adults that they've overheard,
but it isn't exactly one to one. Like babies talk
in one word sentences. They leave out word endings and
(06:39):
function words like pronouns and conjunctions, So they might be
copying the words they've heard, but they definitely aren't using
them to talk the way that adults do.
Speaker 1 (06:49):
I love that you're just picking on babies.
Speaker 2 (06:51):
Right now, I'm doing.
Speaker 1 (06:54):
I'm pretty sure they don't have the option to speak
like adults because you know, word combination, it's gonna be tricky,
and I'm assuming their brains just aren't ready for that
kind of complexity.
Speaker 2 (07:05):
Right, Yeah, No, that's right, And you're actually describing something
that neuroscientists call the mental developmental hypothesis, and that's basically
the idea that one year old speak in single words
and short phrases because their brains aren't yet equipped for
adult speech. But there's another theory, a competing theory called
the stages of language hypothesis, and that one suggests that
(07:27):
children might learn to speak in stages, just as they
do with walking. So in this scenario, speaking in full
sentences has more to do with how many words a
child knows rather than you know, how developed their brain is.
Speaker 1 (07:40):
That's pretty interesting, like you build language almost the same
way you build any other physical skill. But is there
a way to test which of these theories is correct?
Speaker 2 (07:49):
Yeah, So there was actually a study on this that
came out of Harvard University way back in two thousand
and nine, and the researchers looked at the language development
of a group of international adoptees. So it was twenty
seven children adopted from China between the ages of two
and five, and those kids were chosen because you know,
they would be learning English at an older age than
(08:10):
most native speakers. So if the mental developmental hypothesis is true,
then those kids would have had an easier time learning
to speak fluent English since their brains were, you know,
already so much more developed than you know, that of
a native infant.
Speaker 1 (08:25):
And so did they have an easier time.
Speaker 2 (08:28):
Nope. In the end, the adoptees followed the exact same
track of language development as American born babies, just at
a faster rate. So despite their extra brain power, they
still started with one word sentences and then moved on
to short phrases you know, with missing words and so on.
And there was also one other important point of overlap
(08:48):
between the adoptees' experience and that of American born babies,
and that's that both groups began combining words into longer
sentences when their vocabularies reached the same sizes. And that
suggests that it's really how many words you know that matters,
not how old you are or how developed your brain is.
Speaker 1 (09:06):
That's fascinating. So, speaking of baby vocabulary, did you know
that the type of words a baby learns to speak
first largely depend on which language that they're learning. For instance,
this is really crazy to me. English speaking babies tend
to learn a bunch of nouns first. While Mandarin speaking
(09:26):
babies typically start with verbs.
Speaker 2 (09:29):
Oh that is cool. So is that just like it
comes down to how the different languages are structured.
Speaker 1 (09:34):
Mm hmm, exactly. So Mandarin is a much more verb
focused language than English. Is, like you can frequently leave
out the subject of a sentence entirely and just let
the verb do all the work. And of course that's
seldom the case in English. But I was reading about
this in Scientific American and the author Meredith Knight had
this nice breakdown of these different approaches to language. She writes, quote,
(09:58):
English speaking parents tend to use big, one size fits
all verbs as they emphasize nouns cars, trucks, buses, bicycles,
and scooters. They all simply go. Mandarin speakers do the opposite.
They use catch all nouns such as vehicle, but describe
action driving, riding, sitting on, pushing with very specific words,
(10:20):
which you know is something that just never would have
occurred to me.
Speaker 2 (10:23):
Yeah, no, me either. It actually makes me wonder you
know how deep those differences go, Like is it just
a linguistic thing, or does the way you talk about
the world affect, you know, the way you see it too?
Speaker 1 (10:34):
I could see making the case for the example I
just gave, like American culture puts such an emphasis on
the individual, and that could be a reflection of our
languages focus on nouns and subjects or vice versa. And
while I'm obviously not an expert on Asian culture, it
does seem to be more community minded, like the action
or outcome is what counts rather than the person behind it.
(10:55):
And that kind of outlook seems pretty in line with
how verb centric Mandarin is.
Speaker 2 (11:00):
Okay, yeah, I could see that. And so there's clearly
some kind of connection between how we speak and how
we see the world. But one thing I learned this
week that I never would have suspected is that there's
also a connection between how we hear and how we
move our tongues. Have you heard this?
Speaker 1 (11:16):
I mean, I know snakes can smell with their tongues,
but I've never heard about anything, you know, doing with babies,
and many hearing with their fair enough.
Speaker 2 (11:26):
So the idea is that, you know, the way we
perceive speech is directly tied to the areas of the
brain that control mouth movements. And if that's the case,
then we don't understand speech simply because we hear it,
but because we recognize the mouth movements that produce the sounds,
we know. This was all confirmed by a study back
in twenty sixteen. It was headed by a cognitive scientist
(11:47):
named Alison Bruder at the University of British Columbia, and
what she did was she gathered a group of twenty
four six month old babies from different cultures, none of
whom had started talking yet, and then she put the
babies in front of a screen displaying a checkerboard pattern
and played them two recordings, an English D sound repeated
(12:07):
several times and a Hindi D sound played only once
at a time. And if you haven't heard the Hindi
D sound before, I'm guessing you have. The main thing
to know is that it's made by moving the tongue
farther back on the palette than you would for the
English D sound. And so the idea was that if
the babies could tell the difference between the two sounds,
then they would pay closer attention to the screen whenever
(12:30):
the sounds alternated from one to the other. And when
you know, that's exactly what happened. I tracking revealed that
regardless of cultural background, the babies all stared at the
screen longer when the sound switched.
Speaker 1 (12:42):
First of all, I do know the Hindi alphabet, and
it's amazing because it's organized in a way where it
moves from the front of your mouth to the back
of your mouth for each letter, and so like you
can as the words get harder, you can hear how
like a D in Hindi is is much much stronger
(13:03):
than American DA, I guess. But all of this is
really fascinating to me. Like the idea that the babies
can track these screens or they're the scientists are using
eye tracking to figure out what they're paying attention to,
is really fascinating. Yeah, but what does any of that
have to do with, like tongue movement as you were
(13:23):
talking about before.
Speaker 2 (13:24):
Right, Yeah, so nothing yet. But you know, after that
initial round of testing, Bruder tried something different. So she
gave each of the babies a teething toy that blocked
the movement of their tongue, and then she played the
recordings again and this time with you know, with the
teethers in place, the babies didn't seem to notice the
difference in sounds at all. Again, this is like, according
(13:46):
to the eye tracking, so so Bruder tried one last test.
She replaced the tongue blocking teethers with ones that did
not impede the tongue's movement, and you know, when you
know it, the babies once again showed signs that they
understood the difference in d sounds.
Speaker 1 (14:02):
So not only were they using their tongues to mark
the difference between the sounds, they were doing this before
they even knew how to speak themselves.
Speaker 2 (14:10):
Right, It's wild, isn't it. And and the thing is, like,
this isn't something we stop doing once we grow up.
Like there was one study out of Texas a few
years back where researchers had adult Native English speakers try
to pronounce a made up sound, you know, one that
doesn't belong to any language. And so first the participants
were played the sound and asked to copy it. Then
(14:31):
they were asked to do this again, but on that
second time, they were shown real time images of the
position of their tongue as they tried to pronounce the sound,
And amazingly, the participants were much more likely to make
the sound correctly once they had been given that you know,
visual feedback.
Speaker 1 (14:47):
So did those participants not have pacifiers as kids. Is
that why they could learn like that? There would need to.
Speaker 2 (14:54):
Be a lot more research before we can say there's
like a real link between using a teether and a
delay in language learning. And you know, according to Bruderer quote,
at this point, I don't think that these data suggests
parents should be taking away teethers or soothers. The majority
of infants are chewing on something semi regularly most of
the day, and most of these infants do go on
(15:14):
to develop speech normally.
Speaker 1 (15:17):
Oh good, because I remember what a relief it was
to pop a pass fire in my kid's mouths, Like
we were instantly happier in those moments. But now that
we've covered how babies learn language, let's take a step
back and talk a little bit about brain development. But
before we do, we've got to take a quick break.
(15:52):
You're listening to part Time Genius and we're talking about
the latest signs on babies, all right, Gabe. So I
mentioned up front how babies are learning pretty much NonStop
for the first few years of their lives, and I
actually have a factor to back that up. According to research,
during the first three years of a child's life, their
brains grow at a faster rate than any other body part.
(16:12):
In fact, roughly sixty percent of a baby's metabolic energy
sixty percent is dedicated just to brain growth, compared to
a paltry twenty five percent that the adult brain uses.
So and in the first ninety days alone, a baby's
brain will more than double its volume, growing to write,
around fifty five percent of its final size. Isn't that insane?
Speaker 2 (16:35):
Yeah, that's amazing, But it also seems a little weird,
doesn't it, Like why are we all born with such
underdeveloped brains? Why it grows so much?
Speaker 1 (16:43):
One idea is that humans are social animals by nature,
so it makes more sense for our brains to wire
themselves in the presence of the people who will ultimately
raise us. Right, But if you ask me, it's mostly
out of consideration for our mothers, because it takes a
big head to hold a fully developed brain, and the
human birth canal has its limits.
Speaker 2 (17:04):
That's a good point. I hadn't thought of that, but
you're absolutely right. And besides, that whole setup does seem
to be working well enough for us. Like you know,
I was reading this study where researchers found that seven
month old babies already show activity in the areas of
the brain associated with the physical aspects of speech, like
the tongue movements I mentioned earlier. So a baby's brain
(17:25):
is already laying the groundwork for speech long before they
say their first word.
Speaker 1 (17:30):
Which is amazing. And that's not the only thing that
babies can do before they've even learned to talk. According
to a study published in twenty eighteen, pre verbal babies
can also think logically and even make rational deductions with
wills astounding to me. The researchers took a group of
babies between twelve and nineteen months and they had them
(17:52):
repeatedly inspect a pair of objects. So there was a
toy dinosaur and a flower. And next the objects were
placed behind black wall and the babies were shown in
animation of a cup scooping up the dinosaur. After that,
the wall was taken away, and what do you think
was there?
Speaker 2 (18:09):
The flower? Hopefully I can get this right.
Speaker 1 (18:11):
Very good. All right, that's what you'd expect. But here's
the thing. The flower was only there half of the time.
In the other cases, the wall would be removed and
a second dinosaur toy would be sitting there. And even
though the babies couldn't explain what was wrong and words,
they could definitely tell something was off about that second dinosaur.
So once again, the researchers were able to use eye
(18:34):
tracking to show that the infants stared a good deal
longer when the unexpected object appeared behind the wall, as
if they were confused by it. And not only that,
their pupils also dilated when they saw these strange outcomes.
And that's actually something that happens to adults when we're
working through logic problems, which is something I'd never heard before.
And yeah, it's really amazing.
Speaker 2 (18:55):
That's really neat. I'm kind of impressed babies, But also like,
imagine how much fun those researchers had just confusing the
heck out of a bunch of babies.
Speaker 1 (19:03):
Like, I know, the idea of like doing all this
mischief and a baby lap seems really fun in.
Speaker 2 (19:08):
The great it's a great job. Yeah. And you know,
another factor that's really important though in development is of
course sleep, because just like adults, a baby's brain consolidates
memories and you know, cements them into knowledge while they're sleeping.
And according to a twenty seventeen study out of Germany
that process starts super early on, at around six to
(19:29):
eight months, when babies, you know, first begin to learn
that words have meaning and aren't just random noises. And
what's even more incredible is that the length of the
nap may determine how strongly a memory is formed.
Speaker 1 (19:42):
That's crazy, And so how do you even measure something
like that, like the strength of a memory?
Speaker 2 (19:48):
Yeah right, it's pretty abstract, But you know, if you're
a German researcher, you do it by making up a
bunch of nonsense words like Zeuser's and baffles.
Speaker 1 (19:56):
That's what they did, which sounds very doctor seuss that
please explain more.
Speaker 2 (20:02):
Yeah, all right, let me start over. So the researchers
wanted to test the effect of a mid day nap
and you know, see what effect it had on a
baby's recall. So to do this fairly, they had to
be sure to test them with words they couldn't have
already known. So that's why they came up with Zeussers
and Boffels. Those were the made up names that they
assigned to a pair of toy like objects that the
(20:25):
kids had never seen before that day. So at first
the kids couldn't tell which objects should be called by
which name, But then after a thirty minute nap, they
could easily distinguish a zeuser from a baffle. And after
a fifty minute nap, something even more amazing happened. The
researchers spotted a brain pattern in their young test subjects
(20:45):
that had only ever been seen in older children and adults.
It's called the N four hundred component, and it's a
clear sign that the infants had created a solid mental
link between the words and the objects they represented. Isn't
that impress That is incredible.
Speaker 1 (21:02):
So, while we are on the subject of sleep, I
came across a pair of recent studies that finally offered
an answer to the angel question of why rocking a
baby helps them fall asleep.
Speaker 2 (21:13):
See, I didn't even know that was something people were
like asking. I just think your parents were so happy
that rocking work that nobody stopped to question it. And why.
Speaker 1 (21:22):
Yeah, Well, for any listeners who are curious, the answer
is pretty interesting. But I agree with you give I
feel like any solution. I remember my friend used to
keep a vacuum cleaner running next to his baby in Abacina.
Like anything you can do to get the kids to sleep,
rule you will take but human brains likely evolved their
responses to rocking as a way to attain health benefits
(21:44):
associated with deep sleep, and that includes things like better
long term memory and we don't lose this strait as
we age either, which is fascinating. Being rocked to sleep
has also been found to have benefits for adults. In
one of the recent sty adults who slept in a
slowly rocking bed fell asleep faster and maintained their deep
(22:05):
sleep for a longer period of time. They also reached
non rim sleep faster and most impressible, the rockers also
tripled their recall on memory tests. Isn't that stunning? And
this is largely because their brain waves have been synchronized
by all the rocking, which in turn made it easier
for their brains to process and store new memories.
Speaker 2 (22:28):
You know, I never would have guessed to take away
from today's show would be to invest in an adult
sized rocking bed, But I mean, here we are, I'm good, I'm.
Speaker 1 (22:36):
Looking, I know, and I guess we wanted to stay
on theme. The better takeaway for parents is that naps
are crucial for infant learning and rocking can greatly improve
the process. But I completely agree with you. We both
need Casper or whoever supports podcast to make a rocking bed,
so so we can get one already.
Speaker 2 (22:56):
Yeah, please get on it. And Okay, so that can
be our first tip for how to turn your baby
into a baby genius. But there's plenty more where that
came from. So let's take another quick break and then
we'll get back to it. Okay, Mango, So what's your
(23:24):
best advice for folks who want to soup up their infants?
A few cybernetic upgrades, maybe some tasteful jean splicing. What
do you think of?
Speaker 1 (23:34):
I mean, the fact is there's always been a lot
of interest in potential ways to like kind of juice
your baby's development and make them smarter or better coordinated
or whatever else. I don't think we're going to delve
into anything as drastic as the fuck you mentioned, but
there are plenty of toys and gadgets that are marketed
as the surefire way to give your baby a leg
(23:54):
up in life. I know, you know, everything from like
certain toys to baby Einstein type stuff or whatever. In
the US alone, the educational toys market size was more
than twenty five billion dollars in twenty twenty four, which
is more than a third of the global market size.
Speaker 2 (24:11):
That is insane. I guess that's a good thing, though,
right Like, it means there are tons of American parents
making choices with their child's best interests in mind, instead
of just like, I don't know, buying a toy because
it lights up or makes noise or something like that.
Speaker 1 (24:26):
Yeah, I mean, I like that optimism. I'm sure there's
a lot of fear that your baby's getting left behind,
but it is not that simple. So, according to some experts,
the real reason that educational toys have become so successful
here is that a lot of American parents harbor deep
insecurities about doing right by their kids. And while that's
obviously admirable in a way, putting that kind of pressure
(24:48):
on yourself can also make you more inclined to believe
that a product is more useful than it really is.
For example, do you remember a while back when Fisher
Price released that Caterpillar toy that was supposed to teach
preschoolers how to code?
Speaker 2 (25:01):
Oh, the code of pillar?
Speaker 1 (25:03):
Yes?
Speaker 2 (25:03):
How could I forget?
Speaker 1 (25:04):
Of course, right, it was great branding because if your
kid isn't coding early they must be coding late.
Speaker 2 (25:12):
Of course, right, But are you saying, like the benefits
these products claim to have, but you know, there's like
no science to back them up.
Speaker 1 (25:20):
I wouldn't go that far, but a lot of developmental
psychologists do argue that there's a pretty big gap between
the actual research and what many of these products claim.
And the truth is, there's just not much science to
support the idea that you can, you know, soup up
your baby. That's just not how the developmental process works.
Like the whole idea is for the child to build
(25:42):
themselves gradually, So any kind of quick fix or magic
boost from a toy or gadget would kind of defeat
the purpose.
Speaker 2 (25:50):
Okay, but I mean, as a toy guy, playing with
toys is important, right, You're not going to take that
away from me. Like, I know, we've talked before about
how building things would block or lego can improve spatial reasoning,
and like other simple toys, balls, dump trucks, things like that,
they're supposed to be good too, And that's because you know,
they teach kids about foundational things like the effects of
(26:11):
gravity or how motion works.
Speaker 1 (26:14):
And are you convinced, Yeah, I mean I agree that
play is fun, and I would never talk badly about
your toys or action figures. However, we're categorizing them, which
definitely makes it important in its own right, right Like
play is important, but at the end of the day,
(26:34):
the educational merit of your kid's favorite toys less important
than whether or not you play with it with them, right, Like,
studies have shown that interactions with parents really are the
best way for a child to learn, So playing with
the toy won't necessarily prepare your baby for life, but
playing with you will.
Speaker 2 (26:51):
Yeah, I mean that definitely tracks with everything I've read
this week, Like apparently, when babies watching adult move a
specific body part, the areas their brain associated with that
movement light up, So the interaction is really teaching them
how to make those movements themselves, just by.
Speaker 1 (27:08):
Watching exactly, And that's what happens during face to face
play sessions too, right, Like the adult's brain and the
child's brain they actually sink up so that both experienced
similar levels of brain activity in the same regions as
the brain. It does make me curious, though, like, do
you think that kind of neural mirroring only works in person,
or would just watching someone on a screen be enough
(27:30):
to trigger the same response.
Speaker 2 (27:32):
Yeah, I think it would probably still work, but maybe
like to a lesser extent. For instance, there was this
twenty fourteen study where researchers found that literacy videos aimed
at infants under eighteen months weren't effective for teaching them
how to read. Meanwhile, multiple studies have shown that babies
perform better at language acquisition when they're engaged by an
(27:52):
in person tutor. So there are different degrees of interaction, right,
and some of them boost learning more than others. So
audio and video recordings are better than nothing, but they
still can't match the benefits of in person interaction the
kind of stuff you're talking about.
Speaker 1 (28:07):
Which totally makes sense. So maybe our advice is hold
off on the baby's first tablet for years, but do
away with your kids please. Speaking of real interactions, one
interesting thing I read this week is that babies can
be downright deceptive if they feel they aren't getting enough
FaceTime with their parents, which sounds like a weird conspiracy theory,
(28:29):
but a cordier researcher, Hiroko Hakayama, some babies will fake
cry to get more attention.
Speaker 2 (28:37):
Wait wait, wait, how could he even tell that? Like honestly.
Speaker 1 (28:41):
So, Hakayama filmed two infants in their homes for an
hour at a time, and he did this twice a
month over the course of six months. So he obviously
captured a lot of crying on film during that time,
and to determine which cries were real and which ones
were phony, he paid close attention to what happened just
before and just after each fit of crying. So when
(29:03):
a baby showed signs of distress or on happiness just
before crying or just after crying, Hakayama concluded that the
cry was authentic. But when the crying seemed just to
come out of nowhere, or when a baby starts smiling
or laughing immediately after crying, Hakayama claimed that those babies
were faking the cry to get attention.
Speaker 2 (29:23):
That is fascinating and also pretty devious.
Speaker 1 (29:26):
You know, that's why I never trust a baby.
Speaker 2 (29:28):
Never trust a baby.
Speaker 1 (29:33):
So, according to Hakayama, the fake crying is actually a
good thing since it usually succeeds in spurring more interactions
with the caregiver. So, as he put it quote, such
individual interaction contributes greatly not only to an infant's social development,
but also to their emotional development. Infants who are capable
of fake crying might communicate successfully with their caregivers in
(29:55):
this way on a daily basis, fake crying could add
much to their relationship.
Speaker 2 (30:00):
Yeah, it reminds me of some studies I've read on
how important touch is to a child's development. Like, we've
known for a while that babies who go without regular
skin to skin contact often suffer from conditions like low weight, anxiety,
or depression. They can even have wildly different hormone levels
compared to kids who receive, you know, regular contact, and
these kinds of effects can linger well after the child
(30:23):
has grown up. And on the other hand, researchers say
that direct contact between a baby and a parent helps
establish stronger neural connections and keeps them on a healthy
developmental path. So, yeah, you really can't undersell the importance
of this.
Speaker 1 (30:37):
And I guess that makes sense when you think about
how calming touch can be for a baby, right, Like
we talked about how rocking a baby in your arms
can make them sleep better, and that sleep is when
babies process what they've learned. So it's really not that
surprising to hear there's a connection between parental contact and
brain development.
Speaker 2 (30:55):
Yeah, that's a good point. And one thing I was
surprised to hear though, is that touch also has an
effect on a baby's sense of self. So most kids
develop some level of self awareness by the age of two,
which is typically when they start to recognize themselves in
mirrors or in pictures, But frequent contact with a caregiver
can actually speed up the process because it helps the
(31:16):
baby gain a sense of what is or isn't them,
the parts of their body which they can control and
the ones they can't because you know, those belong to
somebody else. And there's this great quote I found in
Scientific American that really hammers home the importance of engagement,
you know, physical and otherwise when it comes to infant development.
It's from a researcher of developmental psychology named Anne Bigelow,
(31:39):
and she writes, quote, this early understanding of self and
early understanding of other is developed through interaction. It teaches
babies basic lessons that they have some agency in the world.
So that allows them to explore the world and feel
like they can affect their environment as opposed to just
being helpless to whatever happens to them. We're basically a
(32:00):
social species. And we learn those things through interacting with others.
Speaker 1 (32:04):
Yeah, I know, we said there's no real way to
supercharge a baby, but obviously upping the amount of interaction
you have with them is probably the closest thing, along
with the rocking.
Speaker 2 (32:15):
Yeah. Well, and if that doesn't work, you know, there's
always cybernetic enhancements the wave of the future.
Speaker 1 (32:22):
All right, now that we've cracked the code on parenting
once and for all, what do you say we get
into a fact off, you'll.
Speaker 2 (32:28):
Bring it on. So we talked about how babies can
manipulate adults with their cries, but they actually have another
trick up their sleeves because they can also do the
same thing with their smiles. So, according to a research
team and you see San Diego, babies can time their
(32:49):
smiles precisely in order to get adults to smile back
at them. After studying interactions between mothers and their babies,
the researchers determined that by the time infants are four
months sold, they can time how long they made eye
contact and how quickly their lips turn up in a smile.
So the idea is that babies play this kind of
smile game with their caregivers where they purposefully try to
(33:12):
make the adult smile. And while nobody's sure exactly why
babies would have that goal, it could be that they
realize how helpless they are and they just want to
engender as much goodwill as possible in the people looking
after them.
Speaker 1 (33:25):
See, babies are so untrustworthy. That's the other thing people
should take from this, sus do not trust one as
a financial advisor or real estate shark, and they are
pretty smart. Well, here's a quick one from Popular Science.
In two thousand and seven, scientists conducted a weird experiment
to see whether a wet diaper is annoying enough to
(33:46):
wake up a sleeping baby. And here's what they did.
Using a syringe, they injected warm water into the diapers
of thirty four sleeping infants, and then they monitored the
baby's heart rates and also their respiratory frequencies to see
how they responded to that wetness.
Speaker 2 (34:02):
And so what was the verdict.
Speaker 1 (34:04):
Not a single baby woke up. They didn't seem to
mind it at all, which is why a lot of
experts now say it's best to let sleeping babies lie
even if their diapers are wet.
Speaker 2 (34:15):
Good to know. So here's a weird one I'd never
heard before. Only one in five Caucasian adults have blue eyes,
but the vast majority of Caucasian babies are born with
blue eyes, and the reason for the change all comes
down to the amount of melanin that a baby has.
So the more the pigment that a person has in
their eyes, the more sunlight their eyes will reflect and
(34:36):
the darker they will be. So a person with just
a little bit of melanin in their irises will have
blue or gray eyes, while a medium amount of melanin
will make them green or hazel, and a large amount
will make the irises brown. Babies, though, aren't born with
all of the melanin that they'll eventually have, which is
why eye color isn't considered set until a child is
(34:57):
about two years old. And since Caucasian in tend to
have less melanin than other ethnicities, most white children will
have blue eyes at birth, even though they won't stay
blue for very long.
Speaker 1 (35:08):
Yeah. That's really also the case with my kids, both
born with light eyes and then changed.
Speaker 2 (35:14):
And then change. Yeah, and they's probably set when they
were around two. I guess uh.
Speaker 1 (35:18):
They set faster for my kids. It's like it was
like a height chart for US colored chart eyes. Well,
speak of baby eyes, have you ever noticed that babies
seem to barely blink at all. In fact, adults blink
about fifteen times a minute on average, but the average
for babies is only about two or three blinks in
(35:40):
an entire minute.
Speaker 2 (35:42):
And that's pretty unsettling.
Speaker 1 (35:44):
But uh, why so in front of researchers do not
actually know for certain. But one of the reasons people
blink is to keep our eyes lubricated, so it could
be that. And because babies have much smaller eyes, they
just need a lot less lubrication than we do and
therefore don't blink as often.
Speaker 2 (36:01):
All right, so babies can get by with fewer blinks,
But that's not the only way they can get by
with less. For instance, when it comes to eating, the
USDA estimates that babies one to three months old only
need to consume between four hundred and thirty eight and
five hundred and seventy two calories over the course of
an entire day, which, if you're curious, is about as
(36:22):
much as a single big Mac.
Speaker 1 (36:25):
True story, but I mean, are you saying we should
feed Big Max to newborns or not.
Speaker 2 (36:31):
I'm I don't know.
Speaker 1 (36:33):
Yeah, we're not experts. So here's what I was surprised
to learn. Oh, by the way, do not feed your
baby a big mac. I'm gonna say that clearly before
our lawyers step in to say it for us. Okay,
So here's another fact I was surprised to learn. You know,
how nobody can remember what it was like to be
a baby. Well, it turns out that on some level,
(36:55):
we do still remember the people we met as infants. So,
according to findings from a twenty thirteen study, three and
a half year old children were able to remember the
faces of people they'd met only one time, briefly several
years earlier. The kids were shown two videos, one featuring
a face of a researcher they had met years prior,
and one showing the face of a total stranger, and
(37:18):
in an instance of what researchers called quote novelty preference,
the kids all paid more attention to the stranger, the
person that looked new to them. So, even if we
can't consciously remember what our early lives were like, there's
a good chance that our brains still do keep track
of it, which is all the more reason to make
sure that your kid's childhood is as happy and safe
(37:38):
as possible. You never know when some happy, subconscious memories
might come in handy for them later in life.
Speaker 2 (37:44):
I love that it's a very weird thing to think about.
And you also taught us that you should not feed
newborn's big Max definitively, so I think you get the
trophy this week. Mango. Congrats.
Speaker 1 (37:55):
Thank you well. That is it for today's episode. If
you enjoy the show, be sure to subscribe on your
favorite podcast app, leave us a five star rating and review,
drop us a line at high Geniuses at gmail dot com,
Hi Geniuses, or give us a call on the PTG hotline,
which we have. We love listening to messages. The number
(38:19):
is three O two four oh five five nine two five.
We will be back next week with another new episode,
but until then, from Dylan, Gabe, Mary, Will and my song,
thank you so much for listening. Part Time Genius is
(38:46):
a production of Kaleidoscope and iHeartRadio. This show is hosted
by Will Pearson and Me Monga's Hetikler, and research by
our good pal Mary Philip Sandy. Today's episode was engineered
and produced by the wonderful Llan Fagan with support from
Tyler Klang. The show is executive produced for iHeart by
Katrina Norvel and Ali Perry, with social media support from
(39:08):
Sasha Gay, Trustee Dara Potts and Viney Shorey. For more
podcasts from Kaleidoscope and iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Hey, everyone, it's Mango here, and I want to tell
you about another podcast I think you're going to enjoy
so much. It's called Candy Is Dandy, the world's only
podcast devote entirely to reviewing candy. Each episode features a
deep dive into a different candy with history, games, taste tests,
hilarious guests, and the kind of super nerdy facts we
(00:31):
at Part Time Genius appreciate so much, like where the
name Snickers comes from and why butterfingers has a link
to the atomic bomb. It is smart, it is funny.
It makes me nostalgic for all kinds of treats I
remember from my very own childhood. So I really hope
you'll check it out. Find Candy Is Dandy, the candy
(00:52):
review podcast wherever you get your podcasts. You're listening to
Part Time Genius, the production of Kaleidoscope and iHeartRadio. Guess what, Gabe,
what's that?
Speaker 2 (01:09):
Mango?
Speaker 1 (01:10):
Do you know that babies aren't afraid of heights until
after they've started crawling?
Speaker 2 (01:15):
Really, so you could go hang gliding with a three
month old and they wouldn't even bat.
Speaker 1 (01:20):
An eye apparently. I mean, there are lots of reasons
why you don't want to go hang gliding with a
three month old, but your baby's fear of heights isn't
one of them. According to researchers, babies only start to
fear heights around nine months or so, typically when they
crawl to the edge of a staircase for the first time,
or when they're peeking over the side at their changing
(01:41):
table or something like that. But up until that point,
a baby might express interest in a ledge or think
it's amusing, you're curious, but they won't actually be scared of.
Speaker 2 (01:50):
It, which is like very scary when you think about it.
But I am curious though, Like why would learning to
crawl be you know, this big game changer for all
of this, Like why is that what makes babies afraid
of heights?
Speaker 1 (02:04):
Well, according to new scientists, it's because of how our
brains change when we first start to move ourselves around
in different spaces. So when that happens, we suddenly begin
to process information that we never paid attention to before,
like what we see in the periphery and how that
visual information can be used to keep ourselves steady and balanced.
So when a baby starts moving around, suddenly they're learning
(02:26):
how to navigate a visual world made of solid, steady surfaces.
In contrast, the prospect of crawling out into thin air
doesn't really make any sense, and the result is that
a drop off now becomes a very scary thing to them.
But that's just one of the recent developments of baby
science that I learned about this week. And I know
we've both got a ton we're excited to share about babies,
(02:47):
So let's dive in. Hey, their podcast listeners, welcome to
(03:11):
part time Genius. I am mongishit together, and since Will
is away this week, I am joined by our good
pal Gabe Lucier. And on the other side of that
soundproof glass wearing a shirt that says baby talk will
get You Nowhere, that's our friend and producer Dylan Pagan.
And I know he's just wearing the shirt to stay
on theme with today's show, but it does leave me
(03:32):
with a few questions.
Speaker 2 (03:34):
Yeah, yeah, you mean, like, why do they make that
shirt in adult sizes?
Speaker 1 (03:39):
Exactly? That is the first of many questions I have.
Speaker 2 (03:42):
All Right, well, I hate to be like T shirt police,
but the thing about that shirt, baby talk will get
you Nowhere, the sentiment is actually false, Like there's good
reason to think that speaking to your baby in a
cutees voice isn't as silly as it sounds, and in fact,
it may even help with length which learning, or at
least that's the takeaway I got from this twenty seventeen
(04:04):
study I read this week from the Princeton University Baby Lab,
which is a real thing. Apparently, the researchers there found
that women who spoke a wide array of ten different
languages all used roughly the same timber when speaking to
infants in a cutesy baby voice. And so the implication
is that baby talk might be a kind of universal communication,
(04:25):
one that mothers and fathers both used to connect with
their babies, and it's also a way to encourage them to,
you know, try speaking for themselves.
Speaker 1 (04:33):
That is really interesting because I feel like we also
use the same sing songy speech patterns when we're talking
to dogs or cats or whatever, and I wonder like,
are we unconsciously trying to teach them to speak as well.
Speaker 2 (04:47):
Yeah, I mean it could be. I would love that.
But the other option I read about is that we
use baby talk anytime we feel like we're speaking to
someone who doesn't know our language. So babies doll people
from a different country. If we think someone can't understand us,
we instinctively turn on the baby talk.
Speaker 1 (05:06):
Oh that's really interesting and it makes you wonder if
it actually works, Like, do dogs respond better to baby
talk than to our normal voices?
Speaker 2 (05:14):
Yeah, it's funny because even though we use baby talk
for animals of all ages, the study I read found
that puppies were the only ones that responded more strongly
to the use of baby talk the adult dogs in
the study. They had like the same level of response
no matter how their owners talked.
Speaker 1 (05:31):
So, just to recap, Dylan's baby talk will get you
know where shirt is completely false from the perspective of babies, humans,
and dogs alike, but accurate when applied to adults of
either species. Do I have that right?
Speaker 2 (05:44):
Yeah? I think that's the gist of it for anyone
keeping track.
Speaker 1 (05:46):
Yeah, I am glad we cleared it up. And when
you think about it, it's kind of a nice reminder
of just how strange and new everything in the world
must seem to a baby, because those early years are
almost nothing but constant learning, figuring out how to move
their bodies, how to engage with objects and people, how
to understand and use language, and you know, it seems
so basic to us as adults, but there's a lot
(06:09):
of complexity to these processes once you start to break
them down. And that's really what we're doing today. We
are exploring how babies perceive the world and how they're
affected by it.
Speaker 2 (06:18):
Yeah, exactly. And since we started with baby talk, I
actually want to take a minute to look at the
other side of that, which is the way that babies
talk to us. So most people tend to think that
when babies start talking, they're just imitating adults that they've overheard,
but it isn't exactly one to one. Like babies talk
in one word sentences. They leave out word endings and
(06:39):
function words like pronouns and conjunctions, So they might be
copying the words they've heard, but they definitely aren't using
them to talk the way that adults do.
Speaker 1 (06:49):
I love that you're just picking on babies.
Speaker 2 (06:51):
Right now, I'm doing.
Speaker 1 (06:54):
I'm pretty sure they don't have the option to speak
like adults because you know, word combination, it's gonna be tricky,
and I'm assuming their brains just aren't ready for that
kind of complexity.
Speaker 2 (07:05):
Right, Yeah, No, that's right, And you're actually describing something
that neuroscientists call the mental developmental hypothesis, and that's basically
the idea that one year old speak in single words
and short phrases because their brains aren't yet equipped for
adult speech. But there's another theory, a competing theory called
the stages of language hypothesis, and that one suggests that
(07:27):
children might learn to speak in stages, just as they
do with walking. So in this scenario, speaking in full
sentences has more to do with how many words a
child knows rather than you know, how developed their brain is.
Speaker 1 (07:40):
That's pretty interesting, like you build language almost the same
way you build any other physical skill. But is there
a way to test which of these theories is correct?
Speaker 2 (07:49):
Yeah, So there was actually a study on this that
came out of Harvard University way back in two thousand
and nine, and the researchers looked at the language development
of a group of international adoptees. So it was twenty
seven children adopted from China between the ages of two
and five, and those kids were chosen because you know,
they would be learning English at an older age than
(08:10):
most native speakers. So if the mental developmental hypothesis is true,
then those kids would have had an easier time learning
to speak fluent English since their brains were, you know,
already so much more developed than you know, that of
a native infant.
Speaker 1 (08:25):
And so did they have an easier time.
Speaker 2 (08:28):
Nope. In the end, the adoptees followed the exact same
track of language development as American born babies, just at
a faster rate. So despite their extra brain power, they
still started with one word sentences and then moved on
to short phrases you know, with missing words and so on.
And there was also one other important point of overlap
(08:48):
between the adoptees' experience and that of American born babies,
and that's that both groups began combining words into longer
sentences when their vocabularies reached the same sizes. And that
suggests that it's really how many words you know that matters,
not how old you are or how developed your brain is.
Speaker 1 (09:06):
That's fascinating. So, speaking of baby vocabulary, did you know
that the type of words a baby learns to speak
first largely depend on which language that they're learning. For instance,
this is really crazy to me. English speaking babies tend
to learn a bunch of nouns first. While Mandarin speaking
(09:26):
babies typically start with verbs.
Speaker 2 (09:29):
Oh that is cool. So is that just like it
comes down to how the different languages are structured.
Speaker 1 (09:34):
Mm hmm, exactly. So Mandarin is a much more verb
focused language than English. Is, like you can frequently leave
out the subject of a sentence entirely and just let
the verb do all the work. And of course that's
seldom the case in English. But I was reading about
this in Scientific American and the author Meredith Knight had
this nice breakdown of these different approaches to language. She writes, quote,
(09:58):
English speaking parents tend to use big, one size fits
all verbs as they emphasize nouns cars, trucks, buses, bicycles,
and scooters. They all simply go. Mandarin speakers do the opposite.
They use catch all nouns such as vehicle, but describe
action driving, riding, sitting on, pushing with very specific words,
(10:20):
which you know is something that just never would have
occurred to me.
Speaker 2 (10:23):
Yeah, no, me either. It actually makes me wonder you
know how deep those differences go, Like is it just
a linguistic thing, or does the way you talk about
the world affect, you know, the way you see it too?
Speaker 1 (10:34):
I could see making the case for the example I
just gave, like American culture puts such an emphasis on
the individual, and that could be a reflection of our
languages focus on nouns and subjects or vice versa. And
while I'm obviously not an expert on Asian culture, it
does seem to be more community minded, like the action
or outcome is what counts rather than the person behind it.
(10:55):
And that kind of outlook seems pretty in line with
how verb centric Mandarin is.
Speaker 2 (11:00):
Okay, yeah, I could see that. And so there's clearly
some kind of connection between how we speak and how
we see the world. But one thing I learned this
week that I never would have suspected is that there's
also a connection between how we hear and how we
move our tongues. Have you heard this?
Speaker 1 (11:16):
I mean, I know snakes can smell with their tongues,
but I've never heard about anything, you know, doing with babies,
and many hearing with their fair enough.
Speaker 2 (11:26):
So the idea is that, you know, the way we
perceive speech is directly tied to the areas of the
brain that control mouth movements. And if that's the case,
then we don't understand speech simply because we hear it,
but because we recognize the mouth movements that produce the sounds,
we know. This was all confirmed by a study back
in twenty sixteen. It was headed by a cognitive scientist
(11:47):
named Alison Bruder at the University of British Columbia, and
what she did was she gathered a group of twenty
four six month old babies from different cultures, none of
whom had started talking yet, and then she put the
babies in front of a screen displaying a checkerboard pattern
and played them two recordings, an English D sound repeated
(12:07):
several times and a Hindi D sound played only once
at a time. And if you haven't heard the Hindi
D sound before, I'm guessing you have. The main thing
to know is that it's made by moving the tongue
farther back on the palette than you would for the
English D sound. And so the idea was that if
the babies could tell the difference between the two sounds,
then they would pay closer attention to the screen whenever
(12:30):
the sounds alternated from one to the other. And when
you know, that's exactly what happened. I tracking revealed that
regardless of cultural background, the babies all stared at the
screen longer when the sound switched.
Speaker 1 (12:42):
First of all, I do know the Hindi alphabet, and
it's amazing because it's organized in a way where it
moves from the front of your mouth to the back
of your mouth for each letter, and so like you
can as the words get harder, you can hear how
like a D in Hindi is is much much stronger
(13:03):
than American DA, I guess. But all of this is
really fascinating to me. Like the idea that the babies
can track these screens or they're the scientists are using
eye tracking to figure out what they're paying attention to,
is really fascinating. Yeah, but what does any of that
have to do with, like tongue movement as you were
(13:23):
talking about before.
Speaker 2 (13:24):
Right, Yeah, so nothing yet. But you know, after that
initial round of testing, Bruder tried something different. So she
gave each of the babies a teething toy that blocked
the movement of their tongue, and then she played the
recordings again and this time with you know, with the
teethers in place, the babies didn't seem to notice the
difference in sounds at all. Again, this is like, according
(13:46):
to the eye tracking, so so Bruder tried one last test.
She replaced the tongue blocking teethers with ones that did
not impede the tongue's movement, and you know, when you
know it, the babies once again showed signs that they
understood the difference in d sounds.
Speaker 1 (14:02):
So not only were they using their tongues to mark
the difference between the sounds, they were doing this before
they even knew how to speak themselves.
Speaker 2 (14:10):
Right, It's wild, isn't it. And and the thing is, like,
this isn't something we stop doing once we grow up.
Like there was one study out of Texas a few
years back where researchers had adult Native English speakers try
to pronounce a made up sound, you know, one that
doesn't belong to any language. And so first the participants
were played the sound and asked to copy it. Then
(14:31):
they were asked to do this again, but on that
second time, they were shown real time images of the
position of their tongue as they tried to pronounce the sound,
And amazingly, the participants were much more likely to make
the sound correctly once they had been given that you know,
visual feedback.
Speaker 1 (14:47):
So did those participants not have pacifiers as kids. Is
that why they could learn like that? There would need to.
Speaker 2 (14:54):
Be a lot more research before we can say there's
like a real link between using a teether and a
delay in language learning. And you know, according to Bruderer quote,
at this point, I don't think that these data suggests
parents should be taking away teethers or soothers. The majority
of infants are chewing on something semi regularly most of
the day, and most of these infants do go on
(15:14):
to develop speech normally.
Speaker 1 (15:17):
Oh good, because I remember what a relief it was
to pop a pass fire in my kid's mouths, Like
we were instantly happier in those moments. But now that
we've covered how babies learn language, let's take a step
back and talk a little bit about brain development. But
before we do, we've got to take a quick break.
(15:52):
You're listening to part Time Genius and we're talking about
the latest signs on babies, all right, Gabe. So I
mentioned up front how babies are learning pretty much NonStop
for the first few years of their lives, and I
actually have a factor to back that up. According to research,
during the first three years of a child's life, their
brains grow at a faster rate than any other body part.
(16:12):
In fact, roughly sixty percent of a baby's metabolic energy
sixty percent is dedicated just to brain growth, compared to
a paltry twenty five percent that the adult brain uses.
So and in the first ninety days alone, a baby's
brain will more than double its volume, growing to write,
around fifty five percent of its final size. Isn't that insane?
Speaker 2 (16:35):
Yeah, that's amazing, But it also seems a little weird,
doesn't it, Like why are we all born with such
underdeveloped brains? Why it grows so much?
Speaker 1 (16:43):
One idea is that humans are social animals by nature,
so it makes more sense for our brains to wire
themselves in the presence of the people who will ultimately
raise us. Right, But if you ask me, it's mostly
out of consideration for our mothers, because it takes a
big head to hold a fully developed brain, and the
human birth canal has its limits.
Speaker 2 (17:04):
That's a good point. I hadn't thought of that, but
you're absolutely right. And besides, that whole setup does seem
to be working well enough for us. Like you know,
I was reading this study where researchers found that seven
month old babies already show activity in the areas of
the brain associated with the physical aspects of speech, like
the tongue movements I mentioned earlier. So a baby's brain
(17:25):
is already laying the groundwork for speech long before they
say their first word.
Speaker 1 (17:30):
Which is amazing. And that's not the only thing that
babies can do before they've even learned to talk. According
to a study published in twenty eighteen, pre verbal babies
can also think logically and even make rational deductions with
wills astounding to me. The researchers took a group of
babies between twelve and nineteen months and they had them
(17:52):
repeatedly inspect a pair of objects. So there was a
toy dinosaur and a flower. And next the objects were
placed behind black wall and the babies were shown in
animation of a cup scooping up the dinosaur. After that,
the wall was taken away, and what do you think
was there?
Speaker 2 (18:09):
The flower? Hopefully I can get this right.
Speaker 1 (18:11):
Very good. All right, that's what you'd expect. But here's
the thing. The flower was only there half of the time.
In the other cases, the wall would be removed and
a second dinosaur toy would be sitting there. And even
though the babies couldn't explain what was wrong and words,
they could definitely tell something was off about that second dinosaur.
So once again, the researchers were able to use eye
(18:34):
tracking to show that the infants stared a good deal
longer when the unexpected object appeared behind the wall, as
if they were confused by it. And not only that,
their pupils also dilated when they saw these strange outcomes.
And that's actually something that happens to adults when we're
working through logic problems, which is something I'd never heard before.
And yeah, it's really amazing.
Speaker 2 (18:55):
That's really neat. I'm kind of impressed babies, But also like,
imagine how much fun those researchers had just confusing the
heck out of a bunch of babies.
Speaker 1 (19:03):
Like, I know, the idea of like doing all this
mischief and a baby lap seems really fun in.
Speaker 2 (19:08):
The great it's a great job. Yeah. And you know,
another factor that's really important though in development is of
course sleep, because just like adults, a baby's brain consolidates
memories and you know, cements them into knowledge while they're sleeping.
And according to a twenty seventeen study out of Germany
that process starts super early on, at around six to
(19:29):
eight months, when babies, you know, first begin to learn
that words have meaning and aren't just random noises. And
what's even more incredible is that the length of the
nap may determine how strongly a memory is formed.
Speaker 1 (19:42):
That's crazy, And so how do you even measure something
like that, like the strength of a memory?
Speaker 2 (19:48):
Yeah right, it's pretty abstract, But you know, if you're
a German researcher, you do it by making up a
bunch of nonsense words like Zeuser's and baffles.
Speaker 1 (19:56):
That's what they did, which sounds very doctor seuss that
please explain more.
Speaker 2 (20:02):
Yeah, all right, let me start over. So the researchers
wanted to test the effect of a mid day nap
and you know, see what effect it had on a
baby's recall. So to do this fairly, they had to
be sure to test them with words they couldn't have
already known. So that's why they came up with Zeussers
and Boffels. Those were the made up names that they
assigned to a pair of toy like objects that the
(20:25):
kids had never seen before that day. So at first
the kids couldn't tell which objects should be called by
which name, But then after a thirty minute nap, they
could easily distinguish a zeuser from a baffle. And after
a fifty minute nap, something even more amazing happened. The
researchers spotted a brain pattern in their young test subjects
(20:45):
that had only ever been seen in older children and adults.
It's called the N four hundred component, and it's a
clear sign that the infants had created a solid mental
link between the words and the objects they represented. Isn't
that impress That is incredible.
Speaker 1 (21:02):
So, while we are on the subject of sleep, I
came across a pair of recent studies that finally offered
an answer to the angel question of why rocking a
baby helps them fall asleep.
Speaker 2 (21:13):
See, I didn't even know that was something people were
like asking. I just think your parents were so happy
that rocking work that nobody stopped to question it. And why.
Speaker 1 (21:22):
Yeah, Well, for any listeners who are curious, the answer
is pretty interesting. But I agree with you give I
feel like any solution. I remember my friend used to
keep a vacuum cleaner running next to his baby in Abacina.
Like anything you can do to get the kids to sleep,
rule you will take but human brains likely evolved their
responses to rocking as a way to attain health benefits
(21:44):
associated with deep sleep, and that includes things like better
long term memory and we don't lose this strait as
we age either, which is fascinating. Being rocked to sleep
has also been found to have benefits for adults. In
one of the recent sty adults who slept in a
slowly rocking bed fell asleep faster and maintained their deep
(22:05):
sleep for a longer period of time. They also reached
non rim sleep faster and most impressible, the rockers also
tripled their recall on memory tests. Isn't that stunning? And
this is largely because their brain waves have been synchronized
by all the rocking, which in turn made it easier
for their brains to process and store new memories.
Speaker 2 (22:28):
You know, I never would have guessed to take away
from today's show would be to invest in an adult
sized rocking bed, But I mean, here we are, I'm good, I'm.
Speaker 1 (22:36):
Looking, I know, and I guess we wanted to stay
on theme. The better takeaway for parents is that naps
are crucial for infant learning and rocking can greatly improve
the process. But I completely agree with you. We both
need Casper or whoever supports podcast to make a rocking bed,
so so we can get one already.
Speaker 2 (22:56):
Yeah, please get on it. And Okay, so that can
be our first tip for how to turn your baby
into a baby genius. But there's plenty more where that
came from. So let's take another quick break and then
we'll get back to it. Okay, Mango, So what's your
(23:24):
best advice for folks who want to soup up their infants?
A few cybernetic upgrades, maybe some tasteful jean splicing. What
do you think of?
Speaker 1 (23:34):
I mean, the fact is there's always been a lot
of interest in potential ways to like kind of juice
your baby's development and make them smarter or better coordinated
or whatever else. I don't think we're going to delve
into anything as drastic as the fuck you mentioned, but
there are plenty of toys and gadgets that are marketed
as the surefire way to give your baby a leg
(23:54):
up in life. I know, you know, everything from like
certain toys to baby Einstein type stuff or whatever. In
the US alone, the educational toys market size was more
than twenty five billion dollars in twenty twenty four, which
is more than a third of the global market size.
Speaker 2 (24:11):
That is insane. I guess that's a good thing, though,
right Like, it means there are tons of American parents
making choices with their child's best interests in mind, instead
of just like, I don't know, buying a toy because
it lights up or makes noise or something like that.
Speaker 1 (24:26):
Yeah, I mean, I like that optimism. I'm sure there's
a lot of fear that your baby's getting left behind,
but it is not that simple. So, according to some experts,
the real reason that educational toys have become so successful
here is that a lot of American parents harbor deep
insecurities about doing right by their kids. And while that's
obviously admirable in a way, putting that kind of pressure
(24:48):
on yourself can also make you more inclined to believe
that a product is more useful than it really is.
For example, do you remember a while back when Fisher
Price released that Caterpillar toy that was supposed to teach
preschoolers how to code?
Speaker 2 (25:01):
Oh, the code of pillar?
Speaker 1 (25:03):
Yes?
Speaker 2 (25:03):
How could I forget?
Speaker 1 (25:04):
Of course, right, it was great branding because if your
kid isn't coding early they must be coding late.
Speaker 2 (25:12):
Of course, right, But are you saying, like the benefits
these products claim to have, but you know, there's like
no science to back them up.
Speaker 1 (25:20):
I wouldn't go that far, but a lot of developmental
psychologists do argue that there's a pretty big gap between
the actual research and what many of these products claim.
And the truth is, there's just not much science to
support the idea that you can, you know, soup up
your baby. That's just not how the developmental process works.
Like the whole idea is for the child to build
(25:42):
themselves gradually, So any kind of quick fix or magic
boost from a toy or gadget would kind of defeat
the purpose.
Speaker 2 (25:50):
Okay, but I mean, as a toy guy, playing with
toys is important, right, You're not going to take that
away from me. Like, I know, we've talked before about
how building things would block or lego can improve spatial reasoning,
and like other simple toys, balls, dump trucks, things like that,
they're supposed to be good too, And that's because you know,
they teach kids about foundational things like the effects of
(26:11):
gravity or how motion works.
Speaker 1 (26:14):
And are you convinced, Yeah, I mean I agree that
play is fun, and I would never talk badly about
your toys or action figures. However, we're categorizing them, which
definitely makes it important in its own right, right Like
play is important, but at the end of the day,
(26:34):
the educational merit of your kid's favorite toys less important
than whether or not you play with it with them, right, Like,
studies have shown that interactions with parents really are the
best way for a child to learn, So playing with
the toy won't necessarily prepare your baby for life, but
playing with you will.
Speaker 2 (26:51):
Yeah, I mean that definitely tracks with everything I've read
this week, Like apparently, when babies watching adult move a
specific body part, the areas their brain associated with that
movement light up, So the interaction is really teaching them
how to make those movements themselves, just by.
Speaker 1 (27:08):
Watching exactly, And that's what happens during face to face
play sessions too, right, Like the adult's brain and the
child's brain they actually sink up so that both experienced
similar levels of brain activity in the same regions as
the brain. It does make me curious, though, like, do
you think that kind of neural mirroring only works in person,
or would just watching someone on a screen be enough
(27:30):
to trigger the same response.
Speaker 2 (27:32):
Yeah, I think it would probably still work, but maybe
like to a lesser extent. For instance, there was this
twenty fourteen study where researchers found that literacy videos aimed
at infants under eighteen months weren't effective for teaching them
how to read. Meanwhile, multiple studies have shown that babies
perform better at language acquisition when they're engaged by an
(27:52):
in person tutor. So there are different degrees of interaction, right,
and some of them boost learning more than others. So
audio and video recordings are better than nothing, but they
still can't match the benefits of in person interaction the
kind of stuff you're talking about.
Speaker 1 (28:07):
Which totally makes sense. So maybe our advice is hold
off on the baby's first tablet for years, but do
away with your kids please. Speaking of real interactions, one
interesting thing I read this week is that babies can
be downright deceptive if they feel they aren't getting enough
FaceTime with their parents, which sounds like a weird conspiracy theory,
(28:29):
but a cordier researcher, Hiroko Hakayama, some babies will fake
cry to get more attention.
Speaker 2 (28:37):
Wait wait, wait, how could he even tell that? Like honestly.
Speaker 1 (28:41):
So, Hakayama filmed two infants in their homes for an
hour at a time, and he did this twice a
month over the course of six months. So he obviously
captured a lot of crying on film during that time,
and to determine which cries were real and which ones
were phony, he paid close attention to what happened just
before and just after each fit of crying. So when
(29:03):
a baby showed signs of distress or on happiness just
before crying or just after crying, Hakayama concluded that the
cry was authentic. But when the crying seemed just to
come out of nowhere, or when a baby starts smiling
or laughing immediately after crying, Hakayama claimed that those babies
were faking the cry to get attention.
Speaker 2 (29:23):
That is fascinating and also pretty devious.
Speaker 1 (29:26):
You know, that's why I never trust a baby.
Speaker 2 (29:28):
Never trust a baby.
Speaker 1 (29:33):
So, according to Hakayama, the fake crying is actually a
good thing since it usually succeeds in spurring more interactions
with the caregiver. So, as he put it quote, such
individual interaction contributes greatly not only to an infant's social development,
but also to their emotional development. Infants who are capable
of fake crying might communicate successfully with their caregivers in
(29:55):
this way on a daily basis, fake crying could add
much to their relationship.
Speaker 2 (30:00):
Yeah, it reminds me of some studies I've read on
how important touch is to a child's development. Like, we've
known for a while that babies who go without regular
skin to skin contact often suffer from conditions like low weight, anxiety,
or depression. They can even have wildly different hormone levels
compared to kids who receive, you know, regular contact, and
these kinds of effects can linger well after the child
(30:23):
has grown up. And on the other hand, researchers say
that direct contact between a baby and a parent helps
establish stronger neural connections and keeps them on a healthy
developmental path. So, yeah, you really can't undersell the importance
of this.
Speaker 1 (30:37):
And I guess that makes sense when you think about
how calming touch can be for a baby, right, Like
we talked about how rocking a baby in your arms
can make them sleep better, and that sleep is when
babies process what they've learned. So it's really not that
surprising to hear there's a connection between parental contact and
brain development.
Speaker 2 (30:55):
Yeah, that's a good point. And one thing I was
surprised to hear though, is that touch also has an
effect on a baby's sense of self. So most kids
develop some level of self awareness by the age of two,
which is typically when they start to recognize themselves in
mirrors or in pictures, But frequent contact with a caregiver
can actually speed up the process because it helps the
(31:16):
baby gain a sense of what is or isn't them,
the parts of their body which they can control and
the ones they can't because you know, those belong to
somebody else. And there's this great quote I found in
Scientific American that really hammers home the importance of engagement,
you know, physical and otherwise when it comes to infant development.
It's from a researcher of developmental psychology named Anne Bigelow,
(31:39):
and she writes, quote, this early understanding of self and
early understanding of other is developed through interaction. It teaches
babies basic lessons that they have some agency in the world.
So that allows them to explore the world and feel
like they can affect their environment as opposed to just
being helpless to whatever happens to them. We're basically a
(32:00):
social species. And we learn those things through interacting with others.
Speaker 1 (32:04):
Yeah, I know, we said there's no real way to
supercharge a baby, but obviously upping the amount of interaction
you have with them is probably the closest thing, along
with the rocking.
Speaker 2 (32:15):
Yeah. Well, and if that doesn't work, you know, there's
always cybernetic enhancements the wave of the future.
Speaker 1 (32:22):
All right, now that we've cracked the code on parenting
once and for all, what do you say we get
into a fact off, you'll.
Speaker 2 (32:28):
Bring it on. So we talked about how babies can
manipulate adults with their cries, but they actually have another
trick up their sleeves because they can also do the
same thing with their smiles. So, according to a research
team and you see San Diego, babies can time their
(32:49):
smiles precisely in order to get adults to smile back
at them. After studying interactions between mothers and their babies,
the researchers determined that by the time infants are four
months sold, they can time how long they made eye
contact and how quickly their lips turn up in a smile.
So the idea is that babies play this kind of
smile game with their caregivers where they purposefully try to
(33:12):
make the adult smile. And while nobody's sure exactly why
babies would have that goal, it could be that they
realize how helpless they are and they just want to
engender as much goodwill as possible in the people looking
after them.
Speaker 1 (33:25):
See, babies are so untrustworthy. That's the other thing people
should take from this, sus do not trust one as
a financial advisor or real estate shark, and they are
pretty smart. Well, here's a quick one from Popular Science.
In two thousand and seven, scientists conducted a weird experiment
to see whether a wet diaper is annoying enough to
(33:46):
wake up a sleeping baby. And here's what they did.
Using a syringe, they injected warm water into the diapers
of thirty four sleeping infants, and then they monitored the
baby's heart rates and also their respiratory frequencies to see
how they responded to that wetness.
Speaker 2 (34:02):
And so what was the verdict.
Speaker 1 (34:04):
Not a single baby woke up. They didn't seem to
mind it at all, which is why a lot of
experts now say it's best to let sleeping babies lie
even if their diapers are wet.
Speaker 2 (34:15):
Good to know. So here's a weird one I'd never
heard before. Only one in five Caucasian adults have blue eyes,
but the vast majority of Caucasian babies are born with
blue eyes, and the reason for the change all comes
down to the amount of melanin that a baby has.
So the more the pigment that a person has in
their eyes, the more sunlight their eyes will reflect and
(34:36):
the darker they will be. So a person with just
a little bit of melanin in their irises will have
blue or gray eyes, while a medium amount of melanin
will make them green or hazel, and a large amount
will make the irises brown. Babies, though, aren't born with
all of the melanin that they'll eventually have, which is
why eye color isn't considered set until a child is
(34:57):
about two years old. And since Caucasian in tend to
have less melanin than other ethnicities, most white children will
have blue eyes at birth, even though they won't stay
blue for very long.
Speaker 1 (35:08):
Yeah. That's really also the case with my kids, both
born with light eyes and then changed.
Speaker 2 (35:14):
And then change. Yeah, and they's probably set when they
were around two. I guess uh.
Speaker 1 (35:18):
They set faster for my kids. It's like it was
like a height chart for US colored chart eyes. Well,
speak of baby eyes, have you ever noticed that babies
seem to barely blink at all. In fact, adults blink
about fifteen times a minute on average, but the average
for babies is only about two or three blinks in
(35:40):
an entire minute.
Speaker 2 (35:42):
And that's pretty unsettling.
Speaker 1 (35:44):
But uh, why so in front of researchers do not
actually know for certain. But one of the reasons people
blink is to keep our eyes lubricated, so it could
be that. And because babies have much smaller eyes, they
just need a lot less lubrication than we do and
therefore don't blink as often.
Speaker 2 (36:01):
All right, so babies can get by with fewer blinks,
But that's not the only way they can get by
with less. For instance, when it comes to eating, the
USDA estimates that babies one to three months old only
need to consume between four hundred and thirty eight and
five hundred and seventy two calories over the course of
an entire day, which, if you're curious, is about as
(36:22):
much as a single big Mac.
Speaker 1 (36:25):
True story, but I mean, are you saying we should
feed Big Max to newborns or not.
Speaker 2 (36:31):
I'm I don't know.
Speaker 1 (36:33):
Yeah, we're not experts. So here's what I was surprised
to learn. Oh, by the way, do not feed your
baby a big mac. I'm gonna say that clearly before
our lawyers step in to say it for us. Okay,
So here's another fact I was surprised to learn. You know,
how nobody can remember what it was like to be
a baby. Well, it turns out that on some level,
(36:55):
we do still remember the people we met as infants. So,
according to findings from a twenty thirteen study, three and
a half year old children were able to remember the
faces of people they'd met only one time, briefly several
years earlier. The kids were shown two videos, one featuring
a face of a researcher they had met years prior,
and one showing the face of a total stranger, and
(37:18):
in an instance of what researchers called quote novelty preference,
the kids all paid more attention to the stranger, the
person that looked new to them. So, even if we
can't consciously remember what our early lives were like, there's
a good chance that our brains still do keep track
of it, which is all the more reason to make
sure that your kid's childhood is as happy and safe
(37:38):
as possible. You never know when some happy, subconscious memories
might come in handy for them later in life.
Speaker 2 (37:44):
I love that it's a very weird thing to think about.
And you also taught us that you should not feed
newborn's big Max definitively, so I think you get the
trophy this week. Mango. Congrats.
Speaker 1 (37:55):
Thank you well. That is it for today's episode. If
you enjoy the show, be sure to subscribe on your
favorite podcast app, leave us a five star rating and review,
drop us a line at high Geniuses at gmail dot com,
Hi Geniuses, or give us a call on the PTG hotline,
which we have. We love listening to messages. The number
(38:19):
is three O two four oh five five nine two five.
We will be back next week with another new episode,
but until then, from Dylan, Gabe, Mary, Will and my song,
thank you so much for listening. Part Time Genius is
(38:46):
a production of Kaleidoscope and iHeartRadio. This show is hosted
by Will Pearson and Me Monga's Hetikler, and research by
our good pal Mary Philip Sandy. Today's episode was engineered
and produced by the wonderful Llan Fagan with support from
Tyler Klang. The show is executive produced for iHeart by
Katrina Norvel and Ali Perry, with social media support from
(39:08):
Sasha Gay, Trustee Dara Potts and Viney Shorey. For more
podcasts from Kaleidoscope and iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Part-Time Genius News
Hosts And Creators
Will Pearson
Mangesh Hattikudur
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