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Infants understand language via rhythm and tone rather than individual sounds

theguardian.com

61–70 of 93 posts

Re: Infants understand language via rhythm and tone rather than individual sounds

#61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Might as well be raising a dog and a dolphin. That made me chuckle. But it's possible for siblings not to share any genetic material right? A brother and a sister would obviously get different genes from their father and presumably there would be a 50/50 chance of them getting different genes from their mother. There's four unique prototypes of children any two people can produce together.

Four prototypes?

>Four prototypes?

gp said four unique prototypes

Re: Infants understand language via rhythm and tone rather than individual sounds

#62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yep, the headline is a deliberate lie to make the story more appealing.

Ironically, you also added the word “deliberately” to make your comment more appealing without any evidence

you turned

> "you added the word “deliberately”

into

> Ironically, you also added the word “deliberately” to make your comment more appealing without any evidence

with no evidence, theory of mind, nor sense of irony apparent.

Re: Infants understand language via rhythm and tone rather than individual sounds

#63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Four prototypes?

Gamete cells get a random half of all genes from each parent so there's about 2 unique possible 'sets' from each parent, and 2*2=4. However because it's random I think you can only say there are 4 distinct completely unique possibilities in theory, but it would be very unlikely for that to actually happen in practice.

Ahh, as in fully exclusive sets of genes

Re: Infants understand language via rhythm and tone rather than individual sounds

#64
post #27

The actual article simply says babies pick up on phonetic differences featured in rhyme and song. It says nothing about being crucial to learning.

We've changed the headline to a (shortened) version of the subtitle, which is more neutral. This is often the case.

Re: Infants understand language via rhythm and tone rather than individual sounds

#66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yep, the headline is a deliberate lie to make the story more appealing.

Ironically, you also added the word “deliberately” to make your comment more appealing without any evidence

You believe they accidentally misrepresented the scientists who never mentioned the concept in the headline? Come on.

There is an endless stream of these headlines that misrepresent the scientific claims in a way that just happens to seem designed to make the article more appealing. I'm sure it's all pure coincidence.

Re: Infants understand language via rhythm and tone rather than individual sounds

#67
post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yep. Having more than one kid disabuses us of the notion that our parenting was the driver in how awesome the kid turns out. That said, I believe it's nature and nurture in the end.

Same. Have twins (fraternal) and their milestones are completely different despite pretty much identical treatment all things considered. They're also naturally better at certain things (twin A better at physical milestones, twin B better at social milestones).

Fraternal twins as well -- night and day.

Re: Infants understand language via rhythm and tone rather than individual sounds

#70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The article notes that the babies are with their mothers most of the time, so they're probably exposed to plenty of language even if it not specifically aimed at them.

Oh sure, but they're presumably not using sing-song baby language, or perhaps singing songs all that much.

Im in the midst of reading Pinkers the Language Instinct and the basic thesis is that language is innate. Preventing language would be like preventing eating.

The sing-song thing is cultural but powerful. It’s hard (for me) to not default to it with my one year old.

Edit: LOL I clearly commented before reading the article.

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