Adults just can't help themselves. Put an infant in front of
them and they immediately fall into "baby talk." As a large
person making funny noises and talking in a sing-song voice, we
want baby to know we are friend, not foe. And of course we're
also trying to cajole a laugh or smile, because there's nothing
sweeter than a baby's laughter or cuter than an infant's smile.
We instinctively know that our tone matters. A new study looks
at a baby's reaction to his or her mother's voice and the tone
that is used verses the words that are said. Researchers showed
that babies reacted in the same way to mom's voice regardless of
what she is saying or what language she uses. Babies watch their
mothers perform different actions with toys using the English
words "whoops" and "there." They then repeated the same actions
and spoke the same words, but this time in Greek. Both times
they used the same tone of voice. The academics found that
babies reproduced the same reaction regardless of whether they
knew the language. S