Sleeping babies learn in an eyeblink

One-month-olds catch winks to make language links

Babies snooze through much of the first month after birth, but don’t call them lazy. One-month-olds doze to discover, with an emphasis on social insights, a new study suggests.

Snoozing infants learned to blink in response to three types of sounds, says psychologist Bethany Reeb-Sutherland of the University of Maryland, College Park, and her colleagues.