During testing, the baby was seated comfortably on a parent's lap in a three-wall pegboard booth. The test consisted of listening to 16 twenty-second excerpts of music: 8 from the familiar piece mixed with 8 from the unfamiliar one. The baby was attracted by two red lights, one mounted to each side of the panel. One light would blink, either to the left or the right side of the baby. Once the baby looked at the light, one musical excerpt would come on through a hidden loudspeaker that was mounted behind the light. The excerpt would keep on playing until the baby turned his head away, in another direction. Listening times were recorded for each excerpt and added up for each piece.

Our results showed that these infants displayed a preference for the piano piece they heard. Babies exposed to the Forlane preferred to listen to it over the Prelude and likewise, babies exposed to the Prelude piece preferred it over the Forlane. We also tested a second group of babies who had never heard either piece of music. These babies showed no preferences for either piece of music. Taken together, these results show that babies had formed an impression of the piano piece and were able to retain this impression over a 2-week delay.

To better understand whether complicated music is harder for babies to remember than simple music, we compared our results with those found in a previous study that used the same design and infants of the same age to see if infants could remember a simple Mozart piece. This comparison shows that the preference effect (the difference in listening time to the familiar versus the unfamiliar piece) is stronger for more simple music. Thus, simple music may still be easier for babies to encode than complicated music. Yet, babies were able to learn with both simple and complex music. We don't know what information babies retained from their exposure to either simple or complex music; was it the melody, or some more global acoustic features of the music? This will require further systematic investigation.

In sum, our study provides further proof that babies are keen listeners, able to pick up and store information that is repeatedly presented in the acoustical environment that surrounds them. Evidence that infants can remember complex music is important for at least two reasons. Firstly, it helps us understand whether babies have limitations to process music; if there is in fact music that is appropriate for babies. Secondly, it is helpful for the elaboration of curriculum for early childhood education. There are many related questions to answer to fully address these general issues. What are the long-term effects of such learning? Do children remember the music they heard when they were babies? To what extent do musical experiences in infancy dictate people's later musical taste? While we attempt to answer these questions, keep in mind that your baby is also listening to that piano CD that you love so much. And learning. And remembering.

Main references:

¹Jusczyk, P.W. & Hohne, E. A. (1997). Infants' memory for spoken words. Science, 277, 1984-1986.

² Saffran, J.R., Loman, M.M., Robertson, R.R.W. (2000). Infant memory for musical experiences. Cognition, 77, B15-B23.

³ Kemler-Nelson, D.G., Jusczyk, P.W., Mandel, D.R., Myers, J., Turk, A., & Gerken, L. (1995). The head-turn preference procedure for testing auditory perception. Infant Behavior and Development, 18, 111-116.

This paper will presented at the 143^rd Meeting of the Acoustical Society of America on Thursday, June 6^th at 1PM during session 4pSC - Speech Communication and Psychological and Physiological Acoustics: Future of Infant Speech Perception Research: Session in Memory of Peter Jusczyk.

For further information, please contact : beatriz.ilari@mail.mcgill.ca