Sit Up Straight: Body Posture Boosts Learning and Memory in Kids

Researchers working with robots to improve understanding of the human learning process have found that spatial position is crucial for learning during infanthood.

According to Daily Mail, experiments with a robot designed to learn like a child showed the robot was able to correctly identify objects by linking them with its position. However when the robot's posture was changed, it was not able to make those links. Studies with infants too showed similar findings, which researchers believe shows the link between learning and spatial posture.

"A number of studies suggest that memory is tightly tied to the location of an object," None, however, have shown that bodily position plays a role or that, if you shift your body, you could forget," said Linda Smith who performed the study.

"This study shows that the body plays a role in early object name learning, and how toddlers use the body's position in space to connect ideas. The creation of a robot model for infant learning has far-reaching implications for how the brains of young people work," Smith says.

The study involved placing objects on left and right side of the robot and training it to associate names with the objects. However when the objects were placed in such a way which did not require any association with specific posture, the robot failed to recognize the target object. Infants too performed in a similar manner.