14 DAY TRIAL // Scientists at the University of Helsinki now claim that kids not only hear sounds while they are still in the womb, but that they also remember them and react to them after birth.
ArsTechnica reports that, according to several previous studies, human fetuses first start hearing sounds originating outside their mother's womb during their 27th week of development.
However, specialists took a long time to figure out whether fetuses distinguish between the sounds with enough precision to be able to recognize them later on, or if maybe it all sounds like some chaotic rock concert to them.
To find an answer to this question, the University of Helsinki researchers made several fetuses listed to different recordings of the pseudoword “tatata,” the same source tells us.
After the fetuses fully developed and were born, the researchers played them these recordings and other unknown ones.
By measuring the infants' brain activity, the scientists concluded that they were quite familiar with the pseudoword “tatata,” which they remembered from their time spent in the womb.
According to researcher Eino Partanen, this proves that, “infants are capable of learning the small building blocks of language in the fetal stage.”