Easy Learning
Students should be jealous. Not only do babies get to doze their days away, but they’ve also mastered the fine art of learning in their sleep.
By the time babies are a year old they can recognise a lot of sounds and even simple words. Marie Cheour at the University of Turku in Finland suspected that they might progress this fast because they learn language while they sleep as well as when they are awake.
To test the theory, Cheour and her colleagues studied 45 newborn babies in the first few days of their lives. They exposed all the infants to an hour of Finnish vowel sounds — one that sounds like “oo”, another like “ee” and a third boundary vowel peculiar to Finnish and similar languages that sounds like something in between1. EEG2 recordings of the infants brains before and after the session showed that the newborns could not distinguish the sounds.
Fifteen of the babies then went back with their mothers, while the rest were split into two sleep-study groups3. One group was exposed throughout their night-time sleeping hours to the same three vowels, while the others listened to other, easier-to-distinguish vowel sounds.4
When tested in the morning, and again in the evening, the babies who’d heard the tricky boundary vowel all night showed brainwave activity indicating that they could now recognise this new sound. They could identify the sound even when its pitch was changed, while none of the other babies could pick up the boundary vowel at all.
Cheour doesn’t know how babies accomplish this night-time learning, but she suspects that the special ability might indicate that unlike adults, babies don’t “turn off” their cerebral cortex while they sleep. The skill probably fades in the course of the first year of life, she adds — so forget the idea that you can pick up tricky French vowels as an adult just by slipping a language tape under your pillow. But while it may not help grown-ups, Cheour is hoping to use the sleeping hours to give remedial help to babies who are genetically at risk of language disorders.
翻譯:
輕松學(xué)習(xí)
Students should be jealous. Not only do babies get to doze their days away, but they’ve also mastered the fine art of learning in their sleep.
學(xué)生應(yīng)該嫉妒。嬰兒們不只打他們的天了,但他們也在睡眠中掌握學(xué)習(xí)的藝術(shù)。
By the time babies are a year old they can recognise a lot of sounds and even simple words. Marie Cheour at the University of Turku in Finland suspected that they might progress this fast because they learn language while they sleep as well as when they are awake.
當(dāng)嬰兒一歲,他們可以識別出很多聲音,甚至簡單的單詞。位于芬蘭的圖爾庫大學(xué)的瑪麗Cheour懷疑他們進(jìn)步這么快的原因可能是在睡覺的時候,以及他們醒著的時候他們學(xué)習(xí)語言。
To test the theory, Cheour and her colleagues studied 45 newborn babies in the first few days of their lives. They exposed all the infants to an hour of Finnish vowel sounds — one that sounds like “oo”, another like “ee” and a third boundary vowel peculiar to Finnish and similar languages that sounds like something in between1. EEG2 recordings of the infants brains before and after the session showed that the newborns could not distinguish the sounds.
為了檢驗這一理論,Cheour和她的同事們在他們生命的初幾天,研究了45新生兒。他們讓所有的嬰兒在一個小時的芬蘭元音-一個聽起來像“oo”,另一個類似“ee”和三分之一的邊界音芬蘭語和類似語言特有的聽起來像1。在此之前和之后的顯示新生兒不能辨別聲音的嬰兒大腦的eeg2錄音。
Fifteen of the babies then went back with their mothers, while the rest were split into two sleep-study groups3. One group was exposed throughout their night-time sleeping hours to the same three vowels, while the others listened to other, easier-to-distinguish vowel sounds.4
十五的嬰兒隨他們的母親回去了,而其余的被分成兩個睡眠研究基群。一個組的嬰兒夜間睡覺的時候同三個元音的錄音,而其他人也聽,更容易區(qū)分的元音。4
When tested in the morning, and again in the evening, the babies who’d heard the tricky boundary vowel all night showed brainwave activity indicating that they could now recognise this new sound. They could identify the sound even when its pitch was changed, while none of the other babies could pick up the boundary vowel at all.
在上午的測試時,又在晚上,誰會整夜聽到棘手的邊界音的嬰兒顯示出的腦波活動說明他們現(xiàn)在能夠識別這個新聲音。他們可以識別甚至當(dāng)這個音的音調(diào)變化,而其他的嬰兒不可能在所有的邊界元音挑。
Cheour doesn’t know how babies accomplish this night-time learning, but she suspects that the special ability might indicate that unlike adults, babies don’t “turn off” their cerebral cortex while they sleep. The skill probably fades in the course of the first year of life, she adds — so forget the idea that you can pick up tricky French vowels as an adult just by slipping a language tape under your pillow. But while it may not help grown-ups, Cheour is hoping to use the sleeping hours to give remedial help to babies who are genetically at risk of language disorders.
Cheour不知道嬰兒是如何完成這個夜間學(xué)習(xí)的,但是她懷疑這種特殊能力說明跟大人不一樣,嬰兒沒有“關(guān)閉”,他們的大腦皮層在他們睡覺的時候。技能可能消失在生命的第一年的課程,她補(bǔ)充道,所以忘了的想法,你可以拿起棘手的法語元音只是把一盤語言錄音帶放在你的枕頭下一個成人。但這并不能幫助成年人,Cheour希望利用睡眠時間的孩子的基因在語言障礙的風(fēng)險給予補(bǔ)救。