There must have been some grant money around that had to be used or it expired at Brigham Young University (BYU). That would explain how this study got funded. It would also explain the desire to spend time with infants. It seems a psychology professor from BYU has conducted a study. The results show that five-month-old babies at least remember the good times. Huh? (Sarcasm Alert) Those first five months of life for the average child are filled with so many traumatic events, it's nice to know they can at least remember all the good times. Who wants to remember having your diaper changed in the middle of the night, not being breastfed the second you're hungry and all those goofy clothes people put on their children during the first few months of life? It's important to know infants can move on with their lives and only recall the good times.
This is an actual study. Below are excerpts from a press release. The excerpts are in bold, and my valuable insights are in italics.
Parents who spend their time playing with and talking to their five-month-old baby may wonder whether their child remembers any of it a day later.
Thanks to a new BYU study, we now know that they at least remember the good times.
Can you imagine a group of five-month-olds sitting around discussing the good times?
“Yeah, there was the time my dad slipped and fell trying to bring me my bottle in the middle of the night. That was funny.”
“I know what you mean. The look on my mother's face when I threw up on her in the church was priceless.”
“I'll never forget the look on my grandfather's face the first time he tried to change my diaper. I thought he was going to throw up. If I were able to speak, I would've told him it's much more fun to barf in church. Trust me when I tell you, people make the most hilarious faces when this happens.”
The study, published in Infant Behavior and Development shows that babies are more likely to remember something if there is a positive emotion, or affect, that accompanies it.
"People study memory in infants, they study discrimination in emotional effect, but we are the first ones to study how these emotions influence memory," said BYU psychology professor Ross Flom, lead author of the study.
What is next in this ground-breaking area of study? The emotional impact of an infant's flatulence on their memories? Another valuable piece of information would be to know if infants remember their flatulence. Maybe they just remember the good flatulence. Here some other study ideas for you. Do infants have a positive emotion or affect that accompanies their flatulence? Do they enjoy barfing at inappropriate times or does it just seem like it? Are infants embarrassed by the way their parents talk to them?
I'm just a man with a lot of great ideas, and I'm willing to share.
Although the five-month-olds can't talk, there are a number of different ways that researchers can analyze how the babies respond to testing treatments. In this particular study, they monitored the infants' eye movements and how long they look at a test image.
(Sarcasm Alert) Well, there you have it. Everything you need to know about what an infant remembers is in their eye movements. Really?
“Look at how our baby's eyes move. He's having a good memory.”
“Of course he is, it has nothing to do with the dog in the background running around playing with a toy.”
“This is definitely a good memory eye movement.”
“He's looking so long it must be a very good memory.”
Both parents cringe as the pungent aroma of a freshly dirtied diaper assaults their noses.
“I guess filling his diaper was the reason for his stare.”
“I bet he'll consider this a good memory.”
“I think you're right.”
The babies were set in front of a flat paneled monitor in a closed off partition and then exposed to a person on screen speaking to them with either a happy, neutral or angry voice. Immediately following the emotional exposure, they were shown a geometric shape.
To test their memory, the researchers did follow-up tests 5 minutes later and again one day later. In the follow-up test, babies were shown two side-by-side geometric shapes: a brand new one, and the original one from the study.
Okay, so, I'm to believe an infant seeing geometric shapes, and changing the tone of voice leads to identifying an infant's memories of good times. (Sarcasm Alert) Sure it does. What were the researchers saying?
“Here's a square. Just like where your toys are located.”
“Here's a triangle. Mess with me and you'll get stuck with a pointed end.”
“Here's a rhombus. There really isn't anything to it. I just like saying the word.”
The researchers then were able to record how many times the baby looked from one image to the next and how long they spent looking at each image. Babies' memories didn't improve if the shape had been paired with a negative voice, but they performed significantly better at remembering shapes attached to positive voices.
You're telling me the time a five-month-old spent looking at an image and the number of times they changed their look to another image proved memory? Could it prove that one shape was preferred to look at over the other shape? Could it mean the infants were tired of this study and just wanted to go home? Could the voice they heard cause them to stare longer because it scared them and they're too young to call 911? These are all viable possibilities.
"We think what happens is that the positive effect heightens the babies' attentional system and arousal," Flom said. "By heightening those systems, we heighten their ability to process and perhaps remember this geometric pattern."
I like the use of the word “perhaps” in the last sentence. The infants perhaps remember or perhaps have a full diaper, maybe they want to play with a toy, and perhaps not. Perhaps we should wonder if taxpayer money was used to fund this study. Perhaps taxpayers would not be too happy with how this money was spent.
Here is a link to the story.
