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We are often told to pay attention to what our mothers tell us. Most of us enjoy listening to our mothers speak. Scientists have found that compared to other people’s voices, our brains greatly prefer the voices of our own mothers.
Scientists at Stanford University, US, recently studied this. They scanned(扫描) children’s brains while they were listening to different sounds, including their mothers’ voices. They found that 97 percent of the time, children could recognize their mothers’ voice at once.
Hearing their mothers’ voices makes children’s brains more active. We usually just use one part of our brain to deal with sounds when we hear something. But when we hear our mothers’ voices, many parts of the brain, including those in charge of (负责) reward(奖赏) and emotion, start to work as well
Why do we respond (反应) so strongly to our mothers’ voices? It starts even before we’re born. When children are still in the womb(子宫) or have just been born, they hear their mothers talking. This makes babies feel comfortable and teaches them language and social skills, even though they are still very young. The babies learn to recognized(辨认) their mothers’ voices as a rewarding sound. Later , when this sound is heard again, more attention is paid to it.
Some sounds are necessary for us or bring us pleasure. These sounds are recognized by our brains as rewarding sounds. Most human voices are not recognized in this way, since we hear them so often. But mothers’ voices are different. They bring us a lot of comfort.