Temporal patterns in the complexity of child-directed song lyrics reflect their functions.

ABSTRACT: Content produced for young audiences is structured to present opportunities for learning and social interactions. This research examines multi-scale temporal changes in predictability in Child-directed songs. We developed a technique based on Kolmogorov complexity to quantify the rate of change of textual information content over time. This method was applied to a corpus of 922 English, Spanish, and French publicly available child and adult-directed texts. Child-directed song lyrics (CDSongs) showed overall lower complexity compared to Adult-directed songs (ADsongs), and lower complexity was associated with a higher number of YouTube views. CDSongs showed a relatively higher information rate at the beginning and end compared to ADSongs. CDSongs and ADSongs showed a non-uniform information

SUBMITTER: Labendzki P 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC11933259 | biostudies-literature | 2025 Mar

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature