Singing is a common form of vocal communication between caregivers and infants throughout the world. How listening to songs relates to language development has however not yet been studied. The present study investigated the ability of 8-month-old infants to segment and memorize words in songs using Head-turn preference procedure. The 24 Japanese infants were separated into two groups, one of which was familiarized with “ahiru (duck)” and “ichigo (strawberry)”, and the other with “koyagi (kid)” and “banana (banana)”. Infants listened to two songs containing familiar words for more than 50sec and were tested with four spoken independent words: two familiar and two unfamiliar words. Each infant underwent 12 trials. The infants listened to familiar words significantly longer than to unfamiliar words. 18 of the 24 infants showed a distinct preference for familiar words. These results suggest that 8-month-old infants are able to process and store sound pattern of words in songs for a short period.
