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mayonnaisejane t1_iyi3r8y wrote

They've been hearing her voice in-utero for a while, so yes, she's able to recognize her mother's smell and voice because he's lived with it for months already. If you talked to the bump she knows your voice too!

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dmnhntr86 t1_iyit3e3 wrote

How do we know they can still recognize from outside the womb? It's got to sound very different coming through the air instead of through the mother's body.

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mayonnaisejane t1_iyj4xqm wrote

The exact mechanism of how they determined this, I don't know but it was likely similar to studies they did that I have seen the video from, where they determined that babies only hours old know what sounds are their own mom's native language and what sounds aren't, because they give those sounds more of their attention. Likely the same kind of measurement can tell if they preferentially listen for the sound of their mom vs. The sound of other people.

https://www.washington.edu/news/2013/01/02/while-in-womb-babies-begin-learning-language-from-their-mothers/

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