American scientists from the University of Memphis found that baby boys are more talkative in the first year of life. The results of the work are described in an article published in the journal iScience.

There is a belief that women are better able to master the language than men. However, new research data refutes this, showing that male babies have a greater advantage in this skill almost immediately after birth. To do this, experts studied 450,000 hours of sound recordings of 5,899 babies. The records were then automatically analyzed to count the utterances of the infants during the first two years of life.

Related materials:Nothing to breathe. How oxygen affects the aggressiveness of cancerous tumors

It turned out that boys in the first year said ten percent more words than girls. In the second year, the difference reversed, with female babies making about seven percent more sounds than boys. The authors suggest that this is because boys are statistically more likely to have a lower first year survival rate than girls. It is possible that this led to an increased production of vocal signals in order to attract more attention. And by the second year, survival rates increase for both boys and girls, so there is no need for special skills.

The conclusions of the work are consistent with the data of previous studies. However, further research is still needed in this area to determine how caregivers respond to the sounds of babies.