Infants use eye contact with speakers to work out what to pay attention to and synchronise their brainwaves, helping them learn language, scientists in Cambridge and Singapore have shown.
The first study to show that delivering information at the natural tempo of our neural pulses accelerates our ability to learn.
As a major Fitzwilliam Museum exhibition explores human touch through 4,000 years of art, Cambridge researchers explain why this sense is so important in their own work.
Mothers’ and babies’ brains can work together as a ‘mega-network’ by synchronising brain waves when they interact. The level of connectivity of the brain waves varies according to the mum’s emotional state: when mothers express more positive emotions their brain becomes much more strongly connected with their baby’s brain. This may help the baby to learn and its brain to develop.
Making eye contact with an infant makes adults’ and babies’ brainwaves ‘get in sync’ with each other – which is likely to support communication and learning – according to researchers at the University of Cambridge.
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