At four months old, babies can tell when a speaker changes languages using only expressions on the speaker's face.
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However, Weikum adds, visual cues are unlikely to aid in an infant's ability to learn a language. He now plans to investigate which visual cues in a speaker's face infants use to identify language differences.
Brian Byrne of the University of New England, New South Wales, says the research reinforces the idea that very young infants are remarkably attuned to language, well before they start speaking themselves.
“The fact that the ability to discriminate visually atrophies if it is not needed tells us that learning language sometimes involves the loss of abilities that are there in the newborn: getting older is not always getting smarter,” he said.
