Infants stun scientists with 'amazing' insights:
Babies only look clueless - they know a lot more than you think

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/18849824/wid/11915773?GT1=9951

"...they can hear the difference between foreign language sounds that elude most adults."

"Infants in their first six months can tell the difference between two monkey faces that an older person would say are identical, and they can match calls that monkeys make with pictures of their faces."

"...presented in the May 25 issue of the journal Science, is that infants just 4 months old can tell whether someone is speaking in their native tongue or not without any sound, just by watching a silent movie of their speech. This ability disappears by the age of 8 months...."



"Ben Franklin noted that he could 'understand French better by the help of his spectacles.' "


I bet there are some fascinating genetics involved with brain structure and function.

~Samwik

New born babies react to their mothers' smell with eye movements, and they recognise her face and/ or voice (mouth) very early too. ( I was going to type "primary carer instead of mother, but I believe the research was on mothers and babies). It used to be considered that babies were insensate, but that idea is disappearing with more research on neo-nates.

Sam-The research above makes sense in view of the fact that if you wish a child to be bi-lingual you must expose it to both languages from day one!

Yay Ben1--I definitely hear better on a phone when I wear my glasses!!

It's not all that surprising when you think about it. After all humans have survived for a couple of million years and had genes for language development for an unknown stretch of that time. The basic elements must have had survival value as long ago as Homo erectus.

Yeah, I read that article, too, pretty interesting.