Week 3 Post 1

Despite taking psychology 100, this is the first time I have learned about cognitive development in infants.  I found Chapter 6, The First Two Years: Cognitive Development, rather interesting.  Learning about how we first develop our language was intriguing to me since it was new to me.  Something that fascinated me was the "motherese" form of speech.  When watching a mother talk to her child, or any body talk to an infant, their voice gets higher.  I always called it baby talk.  After watching the "Discovering Psychology" video on language development, I understand the science behind baby talk.  During motherese or parentese, the parent talks to the infant in a high pitch tone to interact with her infant.  This high pitch tone relays to the infant that they are doing something good or to relay the parent's emotions.  Parents also shorten or simplify words and talk slowly so the infant can try to understand what the parent is saying.  This concept was interesting to me because I never realized exactly why parents talk in a high pitch to their infants.