Science News Review

Baby Talk for Monkeys

Aug 29 at 4:04pm by Aileen

That high pitched, musical sing-song gibberish that mothers use to engage their infants has a name I never knew, despite my extraordinary fluency in the language – it’s called “Motherese.” At least, according to researchers at the University of Chicago. Who report that observations of free-ranging macaque monkeys living on an island near Puerto Rico show these monkeys also speak Motherese!

Monkeys Use ‘Baby Talk’ to Interact With Infants reports:

“The calls appear to be used to elicit infants’ attention and encourage their behavior. They also have the effect of increasing social tolerance in the mother and facilitating the interactions between females with babies in general. Thus, the attraction to other females’ infants results in a relatively relaxed context of interaction where the main focus of attention is the baby.”

And you thought it was just pointless, silly gibberish, didn’t you?

Popularity: 9% [?]