Infants may be born with the ability to recognize differences in musical tones, with their exhibition of skills beginning by six months of age, according to a new study. The findings of the study are published in the Journal of Acoustical Society of America.// There's a common belief that musicians are born with a natural ability to play music, while most of us have to work twice as hard to hear the difference between musical notes. Now, new research from neuroscientists at York University suggests the capacity to hear the highs and lows, also known as the major and minor notes in music, may come before you take a single lesson; you may actually be born with it.
‘Approximately 30 percent of six-month-old babies can discriminate between differences in musical tones.
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The study examined the capacity of six-month-old infants to discriminate between a major and a minor musical tone sequence with a unique method that uses eye movements and a visual stimulus. Previous research with adults has shown that approximately 30 percent of adults can discriminate this difference, but 70 percent cannot, irrespective of musical training. Researchers found that six-month-old infants show exactly the same breakdown as adults: approximately 30 percent of them could discriminate the difference and 70 percent could not.
"At six months, it's highly unlikely that any of these infants have had any formal training in music," says Scott Adler, associate professor, Department of Psychology in the Faculty of Health and member of Vision: Science to Applications (VISTA) Program at the Centre for Vision Research.
"Yes, parents play music for children. All children in western civilization hear music, but they don't get that specific training in music. This breakdown, therefore, is due to some inborn mechanism."
Adler's team at York collaborated on the study with Professor Charles Chubb, of the University of California at Irvine, whose earlier research with adults and adolescents found there are two populations of individuals: some who can discriminate between the major and minor tones and most who cannot discriminate. In adults, the capacity to discriminate between major and minor was shown not to be due to their level of musical training or their level of music exposure.
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This capacity would have implications for developing an appreciation of the emotional content of music because it's the major and minor notes that give music their emotion.
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"What we measured over time was how the infants learned the association between which tone they heard and where the picture is going to show up. If they can tell the difference in the tone, over time, when they hear the major notes, for example, they'll make an eye movement to the location for the picture even before the picture appears because they can predict this. This is what we are measuring," says Adler.
The researchers found that for 33 percent or one-third of infants, these anticipatory eye movements predicted the picture location with near-perfect accuracy; for the other 67 percent, they were unrelated to the picture location.
These results may also have implications for language development, which relies on some of the same mechanisms and auditory content as music, says Adler.
"There is a connection between music, music processing, and mathematical abilities, as well as language, so whether these things connect up to those abilities is unknown. However, when people talk to babies, they change the intonation of their voice and the pitch of their voice, so they're changing from major to minor. That is actually an important component for babies to learn the language. If you don't have the capacity, it might affect that ability in learning the language."
Source-Eurekalert