Letting Scientists Experiment On My Infant Son's Brain

It's not as bad as it sounds! They were just linguistics post-docs! Plus recs for Christie Aschwanden on uncertainty, Edith Zimmerman on viral videos, and Tammy Kim on Boston's mayor.

This week, I let a group of UCLA scientists experiment on our four-month-old baby’s brain.

Don’t worry! No infants were harmed! Neither were any graduate students. This was a study at the Language Acquisition Lab, a team in the linguistics department that studies “how infants tune into their native language(s).” They do some really fascinating studies about how babies learn the rules of sounds and sentences.

I only heard about the research study because they sent us a postcard in the mail. I guess they send these postcards out to every baby born in the city of Los Angeles and hope some number of parents will say, “Yes, you can play my baby some weird noises in exchange for a small, non-cash prize.” I, of course, am one of those parents. I then eagerly awaited a study that needed test subjects of our baby’s age.

The big day arrived when I got an email with an all caps subject line saying “YOUR BABY IS INVITED TO AN INFANT RESEARCH STUDY FROM THE UCLA LANGUAGE LAB!” Of course, I said yes. Who doesn’t love to be invited? My son is already an in-demand scholar! And by “scholar,” I mean research subject. An added bonus is that UCLA is smack dab in the middle of LA’s densest Persian neighborhood and has a grocery store that sells these Iranian crackers I’m obsessed with. So really, everybody wins here.

In this particular study, they had me hold the baby on my lap while he watched a monitor in front of him. A video camera recorded his face to determine how long he paid attention to sounds they were playing. They played a bunch of (to me) random sounds and watched when he turned and when he ignored them.

Big Winner:

MU-FA-SO

Big Loser:

LA-SEE-TUH

While the linguists did not immediately tell me what they learned from watching our baby listen to these sounds, I can only assume that they deduced he is both a genius and a fan of The Lion King, a movie he has never seen.

Personally, I feel like a linguistics lab should have way better wordplay…

As a reward for participating in the study, I was allowed to change his diaper in the post-doc’s office and the baby was given a tiny t-shirt with the lab’s logo on it. I had assumed we’d be receiving a full-ride scholarship immediately, but these linguists were playing hard to get. Don’t worry though, they invited us back for another study in July. Here’s the description:

Some languages (like Turkish or Hungarian) have a sound pattern called vowel harmony, which requires that all vowels in a word must be perceptually similar (languages like English or Spanish do not have this type of sound pattern). Previous studies have shown that infants learning languages with vowel harmony learn this sound pattern before they learn all other sound patterns - much earlier than we would normally expect! We are investigating whether this is because all infants, regardless of the languages they are learning, start off sensitive to vowel harmony because it is so perceptually salient. We are also investigating how this sensitivity changes over time with respect to infants' language experience.

First of all, that’s very interesting! Second of all, looks like I’m going to spend the next three months teaching my baby Turkish and Hungarian.

My projects and upcoming events:

THE WEBBY AWARDS: How to Be a Better Human is nominated for a Webby Award and we’re currently in second place! If you have a second to vote (it’s free and easy) that would be very helpful! Here’s the link

PODCAST: How to Be a Better Human (TED/PRX) - James Clear, author of Atomic Habits, is the go-to expert on how to make changes that stick. It was very fun to get to talk to him about his own habits, the questions he gets asked the most by readers, and what he’s learned about atoms. Listen here (or wherever you get podcasts)

LIVE IN LA: Wrong Answers Only at Dynasty Typewriter - Wednesday, May 1st at 7:30 pm. I’m hosting this hilarious night of learning and laughing with comedians Aparna Nancherla, Rob Haze, Guy Branum. We’re going to get into the history, biology, and cultural implications of MONSTERS with Dr. Emily Zarka. Tickets are just $5 for the in-person show (and you can also watch the livestream from anywhere in the world for free). Details here

LIVE IN NYC: Wrong Answers Only at Symphony Space - Thursday, May 23rd at 7 p.m. Our first time ever bringing the show to my favorite UWS venue! Join me, Phoebe Robinson, Josh Gondelman, and Alison Leiby as we interview Dr. Jessica Ware, the head bug expert at the American Museum of Natural History. Details and tickets here

LIVE TALK: TED Conference 2024 - April 15-19, Vancouver. I’m at TED this week giving a talk alongside fellow speakers including RuPaul, Kesha, the CEO of Github, and the governor of Utah. You know, a totally normal and typical group of people to be in the same place. Info and details on attending or watching the livestream here

This week’s list

GREAT:

Christie Aschwanden is an award-winning journalist, author, and editor. She’s the former lead science writer at FiveThirtyEight and the author of a book on the science of athletic recovery. Christie is one of those people who is just endlessly fascinating and knowledgeable. I had the good fortune of crossing paths with her a few years ago and every time we get a chance to talk, I learn something new and hear some wild stories. I mean this is a person who’s a competitive ski racer, lives on a farm in rural Colorado, and also wins awards for writing muckraking articles on the lasting effects of Agent Orange in Vietnam that led to meaningful remediation efforts. And yet, the thing that’s the most fun about talking with Christie is her curiosity. She delights in the things that she doesn’t know. So she’s the perfect person to host Uncertain, a five-part limited series from Scientific American about the joys of not knowing.

FUNNY:

Edith Zimmerman never disappoints. Whether it’s her own hilarious and beautiful drawings and writing or just the internet ephemera she stumbles across, it’s all gold. And this guest post on Kottke.org is a true masterpiece. It’s part of a series called “Viral Videos I Missed” and I had missed this one too. I’m so glad Edith found it and re-shared it with the world. It really got me laughing. Is This Available? (Attorney General)

(Also incredible from the same series and left me and Mollie in tears of laughter: broccoli casserole and 15,000 pound horse)

INTERESTING:

“In one of the country’s most expensive cities, Michelle Wu is pursuing ambitious policies intended to reverse inequality and a declining population.” Tammy Kim has a thought-provoking piece that’s at turns inspiring and infuriating about the struggle to make housing affordable and accessible. Boston’s Mayor Makes Friends—and Enemies—with Her Focus on Housing

BONUS FOR PAYING SUBSCRIBERS:

Paying subscribers make Bright Spots possible! Subscribers get access to special features as well as all posts in the archive. They also get my undying gratitude (which never dies). It’s never too late to join them!

That's it for this week. Thanks for reading! Please share Bright Spots with anyone you think might enjoy it.

LA-SEE-TUH,

Chris Duffy

This has been Bright Spots, a newsletter.

---

…wait, who are you?

I'm Chris Duffy, a comedian, TV writer, podcast host, and both a former fifth grade teacher and a former fifth grade student. I’m currently writing a nonfiction book about humor for Doubleday.