RESEARCH FOR INFANT MUSIC CLASSES

Cognitive Functions/Motor Skills to Explore and Develop

1. Beat Induction – Noticing a change in beat within a piece of music.

a. Mismatch Negativity (MMN): Event related potential (ERP) that occurs after an
infrequent change in a repetitive sequence of sounds. i.e. responding to a deviant
interspersed within a series of standard sounds.
b. Detecting rhythmic regularites.
c. “…while learning later in life is clearly still important, the presence of beat induction in
newborns supports the idea that this skill is fundamental to the evolution of music.”
(Source: http://musicpsychology.co.uk/icmpc-day-one-symposium-on-infant-
development/)
d. “…it should be noted that the auditory capabilities underlying beat induction are
also necessary for bootstrapping communication by sounds, allowing infants to
adapt to the rhythm of the caretaker’s speech and to find out when to respond to it
or to interject their own vocalization.” ( Source:
http://musiccognition.blogspot.com/search/label/newborns)
2. Consonant and Dissonant Sounds
a. Preferential Looking: Preference for looking towards the source of consonants
sounds or dissonant sounds.
b. Looking towards consonant and dissonant sounds, rather than actual preference,
indicates the infant’s capacity for recognizing the sound and the sound’s capacity for
holding the infant’s attention for an extended period of time.
c. Ecological Validity: Using consonant and dissonant sounds found in nature (in
addition to simple melodies)
3. Music as Internally Motivating Stimuli
a. Tonality Development: registering distinct pitches
b. Initiation of Communicative Gestures: using gross motor functions to express
oneself while listening to music (i.e. bouncing, rocking, swaying, waving of arms, or
dancing!)
c. “Cognitive Cause and Effect: Infants learn about cause and effect as they use
instruments to produce sound and develop their memory as they
begin remembering familiar songs and the movements that go with
them.” (Source: http://www.sc-ccrr.org/media/733/infanttoddler-materials.pdf)
d. Language: Utilizing song lyrics to develop new vocabulary for infants.
i. Combining words with movement to connect the new vocabulary with
physical representations in their immediate world.
4. Song Recognition Through Repitition
a. Emotional Development: Different songs evoke different feelings or emotions.
SOURCES

http://musicpsychology.co.uk/icmpc-day-one-symposium-on-infant-development/

http://musicpsychology.co.uk/music-in-babychild-development/

http://study.com/academy/lesson/ecological-validity-in-psychology-definition-lesson-quiz.html

http://musiccognition.blogspot.com/search/label/newborns

http://www.sc-ccrr.org/media/733/infanttoddler-materials.pdf