In this study, we give babies hand held bells to play with and play them some songs of varying tempos, whilst they are sat on a cushion next to their caregiver. We will then give the babies experience walking on a specially designed baby treadmill, or standing in a baby bouncer, before playing the songs again. If walking is a crucial component of our ability to move to music, we would expect the babies who experience the treadmill to show improved accuracy when ringing with the second set of songs, compared to the infants who were in the bouncer. The infants wear EMG sensors, which allow us to measure their muscle activity and see how accurately they are able to ring their bells, for the whole study.

1. Centre for Brain and Cognitive Development
The Henry Wellcome Building
Birkbeck College
Malet Street WC1E 7HX
020 7631 6258
Walk to the Beat
Investigators: Sinead Rocha, Dr. Victoria Southgate and Prof. Denis Mareschal
Our previous study ‘Groovy Baby’ aimed to investigate when babies
moved from ‘feeling’ the beat, to actually moving to it. We found
that infants at 18-months-of-age were able to adapt their bell-ringing
to a song, ringing slower to slower songs and faster to faster songs.
At 10-month-of-age, we did not find this ability; the babies were
very keen to play but unable to adapt their movements to match the
music they were hearing!
We are interested in what changes between these ages. Other
research with babies and adults show that we integrate information
from auditory and vestibular (movement) sources to create our
understanding of the beat. One common form of rhythmic movement
that we also hear is walking.
Human walking, upright on two feet, is pretty unique – we balance all of our limbs on top of each
other, forming a pretty unstable posture, and then we walk around whilst also performing separate
movements with the torso, arms and head. This level of coordination and the unique corresponding
sensory input has been hypothesised to be the reason that humans, but no other animals, have the
ability and propensity to move their bodies in time with different tempos of music. We are therefore
interested to see if babies’ ability to move to the beat might improve with their experience of
walking.
In this study, we give babies hand held bells to play with and play them some
songs of varying tempos, whilst they are sat on a cushion next to their caregiver.
We will then give the babies experience walking on a specially designed baby
treadmill, or standing in a baby bouncer, before playing the songs again. If
walking is a crucial component of our ability to move to music, we would expect
the babies who experience the treadmill to show improved accuracy when ringing
with the second set of songs, compared to the infants who were in the bouncer.
The infants wear EMG sensors, which allow us to measure their muscle activity
and see how accurately they are able to ring their bells, for the whole study.
The study is designed to be fun for the infants, whilst allowing us to expand our understanding of
infant rhythm production abilities. If you have any questions you can contact me by email
(sineadrocha@gmail.com).