Your Baby's Response to Faces and Speech

4-, 5-, and 7-month-old English-learning babies

Your baby will view several short audio and video clips of mothers talking to the camera. In some videos, the mothers will be speaking as if to an adult, and in others, they will be speaking as if to their child. We will be measuring how long your baby spends looking at the screen during each of the audio/video clips.

Research has shown us that mothers’ communication with infants over the first year of life, through infant-directed speech or "baby talk," is
important for communicating the mother's positive emotions and helping to soothe the baby's emotions. The purpose of this study is to contribute to the current knowledge of how babies respond to certain communication signals, such as infant-directed speech. Research has shown that babies can tell baby talk from adult talk, but are both auditory and visual elements needed to tell the difference between the two kinds of speech? Results from this study could give us a clearer insight into how babies develop language-learning skills!

10 minutes

Families who take part in our research will be able to download a certificate of participation upon finishing the study.