Abstract
Recent evidence reveals a precocious link between language and cognition in human infants: listening to their native language supports infants’ core cognitive processes, including object categorization, and does so in a way that other acoustic signals (e.g., time-reversed speech; sine-wave tone sequences) do not. Moreover, language is not the only signal that confers this cognitive advantage: listening to vocalizations of non-human primates also supports object categorization in 3- and 4-month-olds. Here, we move beyond primate vocalizations to clarify the breadth of acoustic signals that promote infant cognition. We ask whether listening to birdsong, another naturally produced animal vocalization, also supports object categorization in 3- and 4-month-old infants. We report that listening to zebra finch song failed to confer a cognitive advantage. This outcome brings us closer to identifying a boundary condition on the range of non-linguistic acoustic signals that initially support infant cognition.
Highlights
The power of human language derives in large part from its inextricable link to cognition
Much of the developmental evidence concerning the acquisition of this uniquely human link has been based on the discovery that listening to language boosts infants’ success in core cognitive capacities including abstract rule-learning [5] and object categorization [6]
We investigate the influence of birdsong on 3- and 4-month-olds’ object categorization
Summary
The power of human language derives in large part from its inextricable link to cognition By 3 to 4 months, infants have had ample exposure to their native language, but little to no exposure to lemur vocalizations, both offer the same cognitive advantage for categorization This suggests that as infants identify candidate links to cognition, non-linguistic vocalizations may not be subject to the same experience-based tuning parameters as linguistic signals. If listening to birdsong fails to support object categorization, this will suggest that the set of non-linguistic vocalizations that infants initially link to cognition may be more restricted, including only those produced by primates or perhaps mammals. Evident in neonates, is not exclusive to speech; 3- and 4-month-olds favor listening to vocalizations of non-human primates [30, 31] and birdsong [33] This raises the possibility that listening to birdsong, like speech and non-human primate vocalizations, might have downstream consequences for early infant cognition, including object categorization. Determining the influence of birdsong on infant object categorization will help to identify the breadth of naturally produced acoustic signals that support infant cognition
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