Easy Learning

Students should bejealous.Not only do babies get to doze their days away,but they've also

mastered the fineart of learning in their sleep.

By the time babiesare a year old they can recognize a lot of sounds and even simple words. MarieCheour at the university of Turku in Finland suspected that they might

progress this fastbe-cause they learn language while they sleep as well as when they are awake.

To test thetheory,Cheour and their colleagues studied 45 newborn babies in the first daysof their lives.They exposed all the infants to an hour of Finnish vowel sounds一one

that sounds like"oo",another like"ee"and a third boundary vowel peculiar toFinnish and similar languages that sounds like something in between.EEGrecording of the

infants brainsbefore and after the session showed that the newborns could not distinguish thesounds.

Fifteen of thebabies then went back with their mothers,while the rest were split into twosleepstudy groups.One group was exposed throughout their night-time sleeping

hours to the samethree vowels,while the others listened to the other,easier-to-distinguish vowelsounds.

When tested in themorning,and again in the evening,the babies who'd heard the tricky boundaryvowels all night showed brainwave activity indicating that they could now

recognize thissound.They could identify the sound even when its pitch was changed,while noneof the other babies could pick up the boundary vowel at all.

Cheour doesn't knowhow babies accomplish this night-time learning,but she suspects that thespecial ability might indicate that unlike adults,babies don't"turnoff" their

cerebral cortexwhile they sleep.The skill probably fades in the course of the first years oflife,she add一so forget theidea that you can pick up the tricky French vowels as an

adult just byslipping a language tape under your pillow. But while it may not helpgrown-ups,Cheour is hoping to use the sleeping hours to give remedial help tobabies who

are genetically atrisk of language disorders.The study showsthat the infant's cerebral cortex is working while he is asleep.

A.Right

B.Wrong

C.Not mentioned