Infants sensitive to cross-cultural music

CAMBRIDGE, Mass., Aug 15, 2005 (United Press International via COMTEX) -- Harvard researchers report that by 1 year of age, children lose their ability to hear subtle rhythmic variations in foreign music, but can regain it.

The researchers say infants are capable of discriminating a wide range of auditory and visual patterns, such as speech from unfamiliar languages or faces from other racial groups.

During their first year, children fine-tune the processing with exposure to surrounding language and faces, until their perceptions narrow to their own cultural context.

Scientists Erin Hannon and Sandra Trehub examined how the phenomenon extends to music. Previously, they found Western 6-month-old children notice subtle rhythmic changes in Balkan folk music containing more complex meters than Western music.

But in the current study, Western 1-year-old children reacted as adults do, having difficulty noticing rhythmic variations in non-Western rhythms. After two weeks of daily listening to Balkan music, the 1-year-old children regained that ability.

Adults receiving similar listening exposure remained unable to discriminate the Balkan rhythms. This finding suggests a general, quick-learning period early in life, the researchers said.

The study appears in this week's online edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.