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Eye contact helps synchronize brainwaves between babies, adults
Researchers at the University of Cambridge have discovered that when babies and parents have eye contact, their brainwaves synchronize with each other.
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Researchers are not certain of what causes the synchronous brain activity, but one of the study’s author Dr. Sam Wass have suggested eye gazes and ‘vocalizations’ to be major factors. (Shutterstock /File)
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esearchers at the University of Cambridge have discovered that when babies and parents have eye contact, their brainwaves synchronize with each other. The team at Cambridge’s Baby-LINC Lab conducted two experiments to measure the effect of eye contact.
According to medicalxpress.com, the first experiment consisted of a recording of an adult who first looked at the baby then looks away while singing a song. Finally, the recording of the adult looked at the baby. When examining the data, the points of greatest synchronization were when the recording of the person, whose brainwaves were measured, made eye contact with the babies.
The second experiment had an adult singing a song while either only looking at or away from the baby. The data collected from the second experiment were much more synchronized than the first experiment.
Read also: Children learn good behavior from musical films: Psychologist
Researchers are not certain of what causes the synchronous brain activity, but one of the study’s author Dr. Sam Wass have suggested eye gazes and ‘vocalizations’ to be major factors. Infants do ‘vocalizations’ when they create sounds to attempt to communicate. The data has shown that the longer the period of ‘vocalizations,’ the more in sync the brainwaves are between the infant and the adult.
Dr. Sam Wass stated that their study did not discover the existence of telepathy, but their findings may shed some light in the inner workings of an infant’s psychology to help them and their parents prepare to communicate as well as learn better. (ezr/kes)
