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