Following on from my last blog (and boy, did I suffer for all that dancing!!) according to an article in The Times (October 11th 2008) a new study from psychologists at Brigham Young Uni. Utah, shows how strongly we are born wired for sound. Infants as young as 5 months know what sort of music they like and can distinguish it from duller stuff. Babies attention lasted about 4 seconds longer when Beethoven changed from happy to sad, or vice versa, reflecting heightened interest in the change of musical mood.
The study reinforces the idea that music lies at the centre of our mental foundations. Tests by Peter Hepper, a psychologist of Queens Uni. Belfast, have shown that musical memory begins in the womb. In 1989 he asked a group of women to watch Neighbours regularly during pregnancy but no other television soap. After birth the babies registered lower heart rates when the Neighbours theme was played, but themes from Coronation St and Eastenders had no effect.
Playing tunes to a baby bump also boosts mum’s morale, according to another new study reported in The Times. Taiwanese researchers who studied 236 expectant mothers found that playing them lullabies and birdsong for 30 minutes a day for a fortnight significantly reduced their levels of stress, anxiety and depression reports the Journal of Clinical Nursing.
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