At least once in your life, you’ve probably felt your throat burn after leaving a noisy restaurant. This happens because you were “shouting” to make yourself heard—a demonstration of the Lombard effect, where vocal amplitudes increase in response to ambient noise. Interestingly, this behavior isn’t unique to humans; many other species, including monkeys, birds, frogs, bats, and even fish, exhibit it too! Despite extensive research on the Lombard effect, its developmental origins in humans remain unknown.

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In this study, we aim to address two key questions: First, do infants increase their vocalization volume in response to noise? We predict that the Lombard effect is reflexive and present very early in human infancy. Second, is this effect associated with developmental changes? We hypothesize that as infants grow, the Lombard effect becomes more prominent. To test these hypotheses, we exposed infants (5 to 12 months old) and their caregivers to alternating silence and noise trials, observing changes in the infants’ vocalizations. Data collection is ongoing (studying babies can be quite a challenge sometimes!). So far, we’ve found that infants become more “talkative” in noisy environments, increasing 4 vocalizations per minute in noises. Stay tuned—we’re working hard to recruit more babies. Phew!