London: Making toddlers laugh with your antics help them learn new tasks faster, a team of French scientists has discovered.
It has already been shown that making older children laugh can enhance many aspects of cognition such as attention, motivation, perception and/or memory, which in turn enhance learning.
Rana Esseily from Paris West University Nanterre La Defense and her colleagues, therefore, designed an experiment to see whether using humour could also have an effect on the ability of infants to learn.
Each of the 18-month-olds selected to participate in the study observed an adult using a tool to grab an out-of-reach toy.
In one group the adult simply played with the toy after retrieving it; but in the other group, the adult threw the toy immediately on the floor, which made half the children in that group laugh.
Children who laughed at the antics of the adults were able to repeat the action themselves more successfully than those who didn't laugh, as well as those who were included in the 'humourless' control group, the findings showed.
"In this case, it is not humour per se that may have facilitated learning, but (that) temperamentally 'smiley' babies were more likely to engage with the environment and therefore to attempt and succeed at the task," the authors suggested.
It could also be the case that 'laughing babies' might have higher social skills or cognitive capacities, allowing them to interact more easily with others and making them more amenable to mimicking the actions of others.
The second explanation the authors put forward relates to brain chemistry.
It is well known that positive emotions, like laughter or engaging well with an experimenter, can increase dopamine levels in the brain, which in turn has a positive effect on learning.
The study was published in the journal Cognition and Emotion.
It has already been shown that making older children laugh can enhance many aspects of cognition such as attention, motivation, perception and/or memory, which in turn enhance learning.
Rana Esseily from Paris West University Nanterre La Defense and her colleagues, therefore, designed an experiment to see whether using humour could also have an effect on the ability of infants to learn.
In one group the adult simply played with the toy after retrieving it; but in the other group, the adult threw the toy immediately on the floor, which made half the children in that group laugh.
Advertisement
"In this case, it is not humour per se that may have facilitated learning, but (that) temperamentally 'smiley' babies were more likely to engage with the environment and therefore to attempt and succeed at the task," the authors suggested.
Advertisement
The second explanation the authors put forward relates to brain chemistry.
Advertisement
The study was published in the journal Cognition and Emotion.
COMMENTS
Advertisement
3-Year-Old Boy Fights For Life After Accidentally Shooting Himself In US UP Woman Hacks Two-Year-Old Son To Death After Fight With Husband: Cops 18-Month-Old Girl Raped By Migrant Labourer In Punjab Village: Cops INDIA's "Hit With Footwear" Protest In Mumbai Over Shivaji Statue Collapse Celebrated "Russian Spy" Whale Hvaldimir Found Dead In Norway: Report "It's Mom, I Love You": Mother Of Israeli-American Found Dead In Gaza Video: Vadodara Animal Rescuers Tripling On Scooter - With A Crocodile Ukrainian Drones Target Oil Refinery, Power Plants In Moscow, Says Russia China Woman Fakes Miscarriages, Forges Medical Records To Claim Rs 7.8 Lakh Track Latest News Live on NDTV.com and get news updates from India and around the world.