This is because toddlers are not self conscious yet. They experience (are conscious of) all their various feelings and perceptions but haven't yet mentally organized them into the notion of a single 'self' that is 'having' all those feelings. I remember the exact moment I first became self conscious and realized I was me, that all those various feelings all belonged to a single thing called me. I was a very young child in my bed in the attic in a tremendous rising storm. All of a sudden the window next to me slammed shut with a bang in the wind and as I turned to see what happened I suddenly confronted my own reflected image staring back at me. With a huge shock I suddenly realized I was me!
The window had hinges on the right side, it wasn't a double hung type, so as it slammed shut I saw my own reflection snap into view as myself staring back at myself... Of course all this demonstrates that the 'self' is just a mental construct, and in that sense an illusion as ancient Indian and Buddhist philosophy point out... Edgar On Dec 22, 2011, at 9:28 PM, Robert Karl Stonjek wrote: > > > Toddlers don't listen to their own voice like adults do > > December 22nd, 2011 in Psychology & Psychiatry > > When grown-ups and kids speak, they listen to the sound of their voice and > make corrections based on that auditory feedback. But new evidence shows that > toddlers don't respond to their own voice in quite the same way, according to > a report published online on December 22 in Current Biology. > > The findings suggest that very young children must have some other strategy > to control their speech production, the researchers say. > > "As they play music, violinists will listen to the notes they produce to > ensure they are in tune," explained Ewen MacDonald of the Technical > University of Denmark. "If they aren't, they will adjust the position of > their fingers to bring the notes back in tune. When we speak, we do something > very similar. We subconsciously listen to vowel and consonant sounds in our > speech to ensure we are producing them correctly. If the acoustics of our > speech are slightly different from what we intended, then, like the > violinists, we will adjust the way we speak to correct for these slight > errors. In our study, we found that four-year-olds monitor their own speech > in the same way as adults. Surprisingly, two-year-olds do not." > > That's despite the fact that infants readily detect small deviations in the > pronunciation of familiar words and babble in a manner consistent with their > native language. By the time they turn two, American children have an average > vocabulary of about 300 words and appear well on their way to acquiring the > sound structure of their native language. > > In the experiment, adults, four-year-olds, and two-year-olds said the word > "bed" repeatedly while simultaneously hearing themselves say the word "bad." > (To elicit those utterances from the young children and toddlers, the > researchers developed a video game in which players help a robot cross a > virtual playground by saying the robot's 'magic' word "bed.") > > "If they repeat this several times, adults spontaneously compensate, changing > the way they say the vowel," MacDonald said. "Instead of saying the word > 'bed,' they say something more like the word 'bid.'" > > Four-year-olds adjusted their speech, too, the researchers show. The > two-year-olds, on the other hand, kept right on saying "bed." > > MacDonald says the results suggest a need to reconsider assumptions about how > children make use of auditory feedback. It may be that two-year-olds depend > on their parents or other people to monitor their speech instead of relying > on their own voice. MacDonald notes that caregivers often do repeat or > reflect back to young children what they've heard them say. > > While this study involved children with normal speech development, MacDonald > says they'll be exploring potential applications for understanding or > addressing delayed and abnormal early speech development. > > More information: Online paper: DOI:10.1016/j.cub.2011.11.052 > > Provided by Cell Press > > > "Toddlers don't listen to their own voice like adults do." December 22nd, > 2011. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2011-12-toddlers-dont-voice-adults.html > > Posted by > Robert Karl Stonjek > > >
