Even newborns perceive social relationships

As can be read in the ELTE Tuesday paper, according to most theories of language evolution, in order to learn a language, we must be sensitive to the internal grammatical rules of the language or the symbolic, abstract nature of language signs from birth. However, none of the theories addresses whether we were born with the ability to perceive human-only communication information, according to a summary submitted to MTI.

In their study published on Monday, Bálint Forgács, a researcher at the Department of Cognitive Psychology at Eötvös Loránd University, came to the conclusion that this ability was born with us.

"We already knew that the brain area of ​​newborns specializing in speech could 'extract' the linguistic structure from speech. We hypothesized that the brain area could hold additional secrets if the conversations between several speakers were shown to babies," explained Bálint Forgács.

In the experiment, the researchers played words to newborns through speakers in three different ways. In one case, two different voices repeated the words alternately, in the other one voice uttered the same words, and in the third, two voices repeated the same words back to each other.

The left frontotemporal region (including the Broca area) was most active when different voices repeated words alternately.

"This indicates that the areas of the brain involved in language processing are active at birth and not only identify the structure of the language, but are also sensitive to functional language use," explained Judit Gervain, a researcher at the University of Padua.

"This innate system also seems to sense the exchange of information and communication between the mother-infant and the third party," the researcher added.

“So the results suggest that we may be able to identify human communication through the mechanisms we are born with, which also opens up a new perspective on language evolution,” the results concluded.

According to the report, it is also new that the language is discovered and learned not only on the basis of its grammatical and structural characteristics, but also on the basis of its use, on the basis of interaction patterns between speakers and the audience.

"Research is the first to show that newborns are able to track not only when someone interacts with them, but also when people in their environment interact with each other, even if they are not participants in the communication.

And this shows that newborns are much more sensitive to social conditions than previously thought, "the study summarized.

(Source: marmalade.co.uk; MTI | Image: pixabay.com)