Photo: Carlos Martinez/Unsplash
Photo: Carlos Martinez/Unsplash

Even foreign lullabies will chill a baby out

Embargoed until: Publicly released:
Peer-reviewed: This work was reviewed and scrutinised by relevant independent experts.

Experimental study: At least one thing in the experiment was changed to see if it had an impact on the subjects (often people or animals) – eg: changing the amount of time mice spend on an exercise wheel to find out what impact it has on weight loss.

People: This is a study based on research using people.

New research suggests that there’s something inherently calming about a lullaby, regardless of the language or familiarity. Researchers played eight unfamiliar, foreign lullabies to more than 140 babies in the US, and found that they relaxed more to these songs than to non-lullaby music from other cultures. The authors conclude that singing is an effective way to relax infants and that music could play an everyday role in improving child wellbeing.

Journal/conference: Nature Human Behaviour

Link to research (DOI): 10.1038/s41562-020-00963-z

Organisation/s: Victoria University of Wellington, Harvard University, USA

Funder: This research was supported by the NIH Director’s Early Independence Award DP5OD024566, the Harvard University Department of Psychology and the Harvard Data Science Initiative.

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