Study finds toddlers understand the sounds they make can affect others
Confirming what many parents and grandparents already know, children as young as two understand how the sounds they make affect people around them, according to a new study published in the Journal of Cognition and Development.
Researchers from Georgia State University and the University of Washington studied 48 children, ages two to three years old. The toddlers had a chance to play with two toys – a quiet toy and a loud toy. A researchers then gave the children a doll and told them to either wake up the doll or let the doll sleep. Then, without instruction, the children got to play with the original toys again.
The researchers wanted to find out if the toddlers understood how noise would affect others and if they did, whether they would change their play behaviour. The study found that children understood all too well the behavioural and psychological effects of different types of sound.
“We were excited to see that young children tried to wake the baby with loud sounds. They also played quietly to let the baby sleep,” said Dr. Rebecca Williamson, assistant professor of psychology at Georgia State.
Toddlers with siblings were more likely to adjust the noise level, suggesting that they were able to empathise with the doll more readily as they know what it feels like to be awakened by a loud sibling.
This research is the first to explore the skill of perspective-taking with sounds. Previous research had focused on visual perceptive-taking like how babies follow a mother’s gaze to see what she’s looking at. Coupled with this study, the growing research suggests that toddlers are more than capable of abstract perspective-taking.
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