Infants as young as three months old are capable of processing music in their brains, according to a new study. However, the ability for their bodies to move in time with a rhythm does not fully develop until around 12 months of age.
Researchers tracked 48 healthy infants at three, six, and 12 months old. During the study, the babies wore a cap fitted with electrodes to measure brain activity while listening to various musical rhythms. Simultaneously, their movements were filmed to observe spontaneous bouncing, swaying, or kicking in response to the music.
The analysis, published in the journal eLife, revealed that by three months of age, infants' brains could detect rhythmic patterns. Coordinated, dance-like movements, however, only began to appear closer to their first birthday. By the age of one, the infants were significantly more likely to move rhythmically in time with the music, exhibiting behaviors such as front-back rocking, side swaying, clapping, up-down rocking, and arm pedaling.
Lead author Dr. Trinh Nguyen from the Italian Institute of Technology noted that over the first year of life, infants tend to move their lower bodies while gradually increasing their capacity for more complex upper-body and whole-body movements when seated. This increasing complexity is thought to be linked to the maturation of the dorsal auditory stream in the brain, a pathway associated with rhythmic entrainment and beat perception.
These findings suggest that while babies are born with an innate ability to respond to music, their physical coordination requires more time to develop. Previous research has also indicated that newborns can predict musical patterns from as early as two days old, suggesting they are 'already tuned in' to music from birth. A separate study using electroencephalography on sleeping newborns playing J.S. Bach compositions showed that infants exhibited signs of surprise when musical rhythms changed unexpectedly, indicating they had formed rhythmic expectations.