The more eye contact mothers make with their baby, the better their brainwaves synchronize with one another, a new study shows.
When parents and infants interact, their gaze, emotions and heart rate synchronize. But until now, little has been known about whether brain activity also lines up.
Researchers found that direct eye contact not only aligns the brainwaves but causes infants to vocalize more, showing an intention to communicate.
This knowledge can help improve communication between parents and infants, making learning more effective during this critical time in a child’s brain development, researchers said.
Making direct eye contact with an infant synchronizes an adult’s brainwaves with one another and can lead to better communication and learning during this critical developmental stage
Brainwaves reflect the activity of millions of neurons and are involved in information transferring between brain regions.
A child’s brain develops rapidly during the first five years of life and babies begin to learn words at around 15 to 18 months.
Research has found that a close relationship between a child and caregiver nourishes a growing brain, but synchronization in brain activity opens doors to improved development.
Previous studies have shown that when two adults are talking to each other, communication is more successful if their brainwaves are synchronized.
The study from the Baby-LINC Lab at the University of Cambridge explored whether infants can also synchronize their brainwaves to adults and how eye contact influences this.
The team conducted two experiments to examine the brainwave patterns of 36 infants, 17 in the first experiment and 19 in the second.
The participants wore skull caps outfitted with electrodes that measured patterns of brain electrical activity through an electroencephalography (EEG) machine.
Researchers compared the infants brain activity with an adult’s who was singing a nursery rhyme to determine if their brainwaves would match up.
In the first experiment, the infant watched a video of the adult singing nursery rhymes.
First, the adult looked directly at the infant while singing. Then, she turned her head away from the baby while continuing to sing. Finally, she tuned her head away but moved her gaze back to the infant and locked eyes.
The results published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) found that the infants’ brainwaves were more synchronized to the adult’s when their gazes met.
But interestingly, the greatest synchronization occurred when the adult’s head was turned away with her eyes still locked on the infant’s.
The researchers concluded that the infant may have recognized the gaze as being highly deliberate and understood it as a strong signal to communicate.
Dr Victoria Leong, lead author on the study said: ‘When the adult and infant are looking at each other, they are signalling their availability and intention to communicate with each other.’
In the second experiment, an in-person interaction between the adult and infant replaced the video while both brainwaves were being monitored.
The woman looked either directly at the infant or looked away while singing the nursery rhymes.
Both of the participants were the most synchronized to each other’s brain activity when mutual eye contact was established.
However, the waves were still in sync when the woman looked away and the infant continued to watch her.
The researchers said this shows that brainwave synchronization isn’t just due to seeing a face or finding something interesting, but about sharing an intention to communicate.
‘We found that both adult and infant brains respond to a gaze signal by becoming more in sync with their partner. This mechanism could prepare parents and babies to communicate, by synchronizing when to speak and when to listen, which would also make learning more effective,’ said Leong.
The study also found that infants made more vocalization’s when given direct eye contact, which showed their intention to communicate.
Dr Sam Wass, last author on the study, said: ‘We don’t know what it is, yet, that causes this synchronous brain activity. We’re certainly not claiming to have discovered telepathy!’