Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10 5/26/83; site ihuxi.UUCP Path: utzoo!linus!philabs!cmcl2!floyd!vax135!ariel!houti!hogpc!houxm!ihnp4!ihuxi!otto From: otto@ihuxi.UUCP Newsgroups: net.misc Subject: Re: Rock Music & the Unborn Message-ID: <438@ihuxi.UUCP> Date: Mon, 13-Jun-83 16:57:36 EDT Article-I.D.: ihuxi.438 Posted: Mon Jun 13 16:57:36 1983 Date-Received: Wed, 15-Jun-83 12:39:28 EDT References: <4587@cornell.UUCP> Organization: BTL Naperville, Il. Lines: 61 Why should pre-natal influences appear to be like Scientology? I think they can be grounded in ordinary, pedestrian neurophysiology. Neural mylination begins at around 6 months of pregnancy and continues until the child is around 2 or 3 years of age, if I recall my neurophysiology correctly. This means that the nerve fibers are beginning to process sensory input at resonably normal rates beginning then. Now what does it mean to say that sensory input is being processed? Is it reasonable to assume that a prenate is somehow inert, functioning on automatic pilot until the moment of birth and only then begins to form associations, memories, etc.? Or is it more reasonable to assume that the prenate is gradually arriving at consciousness and forming associations and memories as soon as its nervous system permits? I hold with this latter view. As soon as the nervous system is capable of sustaining transmission of action potentials from sensory receptors to the brain, that is when the prenate begins to perceive and learn about the world. What kind of sensory input is a prenate likely to experience? I think this is an exciting question to follow up on. Some years ago I heard about a doll what was very successful in calming down neonates. The doll was a Teddy bear, but it's most unusual feature was that it contained a cassette player that continuously played the sounds that had been recorded by a microphone placed in a mother's womb, i.e., it replayed the sounds a prenate would have heard. Neonates hearing this would quickly calm down and fall into slumber. Is it likely that prenates can hear more than the sounds immediately around them? the sounds of a mother's heart and lungs working? the thumps and bumps of a mother's walking? I would think so, and I would think simple experiments could be performed to determine what "outside" sounds were sufficiently intense to be readily perceived above the background noise of the mother's bodily functions. Somehow, rock music would seem to be one of the more likely candidates for such perception. What effect rock music might have on a prenate is hard to say, but it seems likely, to me at any rate, that such music could be heard by a prenate and built into whatever memories and associations are being formed at that time. Other candidates for such sounds, it seems to me, are the very low frequency sounds of speech. Low frequency sounds can be heard through barriers better than high frequency sounds, and spoken communication is likely to be nearly continuously available in the environment (as Mother talks to Father, Doctor, friends; listens to TV and radio, etc.). Are there any important patterns to be learned in the low frequencies of speech? Yes, indeed ... the typical rhythms of communication! Different cultures have different rhythms for individual sentences and for the give-and-take of different types of conversation. A prenate, monitoring the muffled sounds of such interaction, could already be acculturating itself, permitting itself *some* mastery over William James "blooming, buzzing confusion" of sensory perception after birth. By the way, my Ph.D. Dissertation was in this area, focusing on the problems of getting a computer to process sensory information the way neonates do. If you want to read more, locate a copy of "Automatic Extraction of Distinctive Features," Ph.D. Dissertation, University of Pennsylvania, 1981. George Otto Bell Labs, Indian Hill ----------------------