Have you ever noticed how adults change their pitch when talking to babies? They might speak more slowly with a higher pitch, and use a more ‘sing-song' tone. This is known as ‘'baby talk’, and can support listening and understanding for young children. It is also known as infant-directed speech, and new research has looked at how it varies globally.
A recent international study has taken a close look at infant-directed speech in cities all over the world. Carried out by Nature Human Behaviour, a team analysed 1615 recordings of adults talking and singing to young children and adults, from 410 people across 21 locations.
More than 50,000 people from countries all over the world also listened to the audio and discussed whether they thought the people in the clips were talking to adults or children. Audio equipment was also used to detect differences in tone.
The study found that participants in all locations often changed their tone of speech depending on whether they were talking to adults or children.
After looking at the differences between locations, it was found that people taking part from Wellington, New Zealand, were the most likely to adopt these changes to their voice, with their infant-directed speech being the easiest to distinguish from their usual speech.
Other people that commonly changed their pitch and tone when talking to young children were people from Toronto, Canada, and Beijing, China, as well as Afro-Colombian people from Colombia, and the Arawak people of South America and the Caribbean.
There are many benefits to infant-directed speech. Studies have found that using a combination of baby talk with eye contact can peak a child’s interest when speaking to them, and can help them concentrate and pay more attention to what you are saying. This increase in attention can also help babies to understand and remember speech patterns. The repetitive nature of infant-directed speech also supports this.[1]
[1] Lloyd-Fox S, Széplaki-Köllőd B, Yin J, and Csibra G. 2015. Are you talking to me? Neural activations in 6-month-old infants in response to being addressed during natural interactions. Cortex 70:35-48.