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Acoustic parameters of infant-directed singing in mothers of infants with down syndrome
Abstract
This study compared the acoustic parameters and degree of perceived warmth in two types of infant-directed (ID) songs − the lullaby and the playsong − between mothers of infants with Down syndrome (DS) and mothers of typically-developing (TD) infants. Participants included mothers of 15 DS infants and 15 TD infants between 3 and 9 months of age. Each mother's singing voice was digitally recorded while singing to her infant and subjected to feature extraction and data mining. Mothers of DS infants and TD infants sang both lullabies and playsongs with similar frequency. In comparison with mothers of TD infants, mothers of DS infants used a higher maximum pitch and more key changes during playsong. Mothers of DS infants also took more time to establish a rhythmic structure in their singing. These differences suggest mothers are sensitive to the attentional and arousal needs of their DS infants. Mothers of TD infants sang with a higher degree of perceived warmth which does not agree with previous observations of "for-ceful warmth" in mothers of DS infants. In comparison with lullaby, all mothers sang playsong with higher overall pitch and slower tempo. Playsongs were also distinguished by higher levels of spectral centroid properties related to emotional expressivity, as well as higher degrees of perceived warmth. These similarities help to define specific song types, and suggest that all mothers sing in an expressive manner that can modulate infant arousal, including mothers of DS infants.
... Consistent with research with TD infants, infant-directed singing maintains the attention of infants with DS and ASD (de l'Etoile, 2015; Simpson et al., 2013). Mothers of children with DS take more time to establish a rhythmic structure when singing than mothers of TD infants, perhaps due in part to the child's developmental skills (e.g., slower processing time) as well as added time needed for the parent to read and respond to the child's cues (de l'Etoile et al., 2017). ...
Families with young children with and without developmental disabilities often create a musically rich home environment. Parent-child music engagement, like singing play songs, is associated with positive outcomes for children, parents, and their relationship. However, little is known about if the home music environment differs across diagnostic groups and if parent-child music engagement relates to parent-child affective attachment across families of diagnostically diverse children. Using an online questionnaire, the current study examined the home music environment of 340 families with young children with typical and atypical development. A variety of musical activities were common in all diagnostic groups. Diagnostic groups differed in active musical engagement, potentially relating to the differing phenotypes of various developmental disabilities. Parent-child music engagement was associated with parent-child affective attachment, even when controlling for relevant variables. Promoting musical engagement at home and through parent-child therapy may be an accessible way to support parent-child relationships.
... Consistent with research with TD infants, infant-directed singing maintains the attention of infants with DS and ASD (de l'Etoile, 2015; Simpson et al., 2013). Mothers of children with DS take more time to establish a rhythmic structure when singing than mothers of TD infants, perhaps due in part to the child's developmental skills (e.g., slower processing time) as well as added time needed for the parent to read and respond to the child's cues (de l'Etoile et al., 2017). ...
Families with young children with and without developmental disabilities often engage in musical experiences in the home. These parent-child musical activities are associated with positive outcomes for children and parents and may be a context to help foster strong parent-child relationships. However, little is known about how musical experiences differ across diagnostic groups or their relevance to parent-child attachment. Using an online questionnaire, the current study examined musical experiences and their relationship with parent-child attachment for 340 families with young children with typical and atypical development. Musical experiences were common in all diagnostic groups. Diagnostic groups differed in active musical engagement, potentially relating to the differing phenotypes of various developmental disabilities. Parent-child music engagement was associated with parent-child attachment, even when controlling for relevant variables. Promoting musical experiences may be an accessible way to support the parent-child relationship across diagnostic groups with implications for informal music engagement and parent-child therapy.
... Music therapy focused on singing has also been used productively with parents and their infants with disabilities (e.g., de l'Etoile, 2015;de l'Etoile, Behura, & Zopluoglu, 2017;Williams, Berthelsen, Nicholson, Walker, & Abad, 2012). The Australian program, Sing & Grow (Williams et al., 2012), which incorporates various musical play activities with such dyads, has been successful in enhancing parents' wellbeing as well as infants' and young children's social skills. ...
... Such factors include rhythmicity of songs, movement patterns, and infants' familiarity. They conclude that further research on maternal singing as a self-regulatory tool is necessary in order to provide the factors related to the security of mother-infant attachment (Ghazban, 2013;De l'Etoile, Behura, & Zopluoglu, 2017). ...
Music is a ubiquitous element of individuals’ lives (DeNora, 2000), and its response depends on the music itself, context, and listener (Hargreaves, Miell, & MacDonald, 2005). Music is proved to be a tool for building relationships, due to its function of communicating individual and cultural values between communities (Merriam, 1964). Individuals’ motivations to listen to a certain kind of music are based on the emotional and aesthetic responses experienced on social and individual levels. However, only a few studies addressed how music can be a way to facilitate maternal bonding, which are based mainly on the uses of maternal singing or listening mainly to infant songs (Persico et al., 2017; Fancourt & Perkins, 2017). Research on maternal bonding highlights the importance of affectionate mother- infant interactions to promote infants’ general development (Gerhardt, 2015); which at the same time depends on the mothers’ emotional state (Stern, 1971). This research addresses the current gaps about the uses of music in everyday life and how its social functions may facilitate maternal bonding. The research is based in two studies. Firstly, Study 1 is based on an exploratory qualitative study, in which the patterns of the general uses of mothers were analysed. The general findings were that mothers’ uses of music depend on their infant interaction, and that their selection of music is based mainly on the infants’ emotional and cognitive response. Differently, Study 2 look more in depth how mothers’ self-selected music facilitates maternal bonding. The second study is based on a mixed method design, in which quantitative and qualitative approaches were considered. The Study 2 general findings suggested that mothers self-selected music had a greater impact than infant songs on the mothers’ and infants’ emotional response, and on the mother-infant interactions. Finally, the general findings of both studies, suggested that mothers’ motivations of using music was based on the mothers’ and infants’ musical response, which created a cycle that influenced in their sense of wellness and consequently, in facilitating maternal bonding.
It is widely known that persons with Down syndrome as well as individuals with learning disabilities are coping with problems in their overall learning experiences. Down syndrome (DS) is one of the most usual chromosome disturbances that appears in one of every 700-1000 births and its most common symptom is mental retardation. The impact of music, imaging and ICT has been bibliographically proven to have a positive impact on people with Down syndrome and people with learning disabilities in general. The combination of these fields can help the improvement of cognitive function of these individuals. This research was based on articles in scientific journals to explore the effectiveness of the above-mentioned scientific fields. The results showed that blending music, imaging and ICT can successfully contribute to the improvement and development of cognitive functions in people with Down syndrome and in a broader context in people with learning disabilities. In conclusion, each of the three thematic fields and the interaction of these three thematic fields leads us to the conclusion that it is possible to improve and develop cognitive function.
This study examined European American and Hispanic American mothers' multimodal communication to their infants (N= 24). The infants were from three age groups representing three levels of lexical-mapping development: prelexical (5 to 8 months), early-lexical (9 to 17 months), and advanced-lexical (21 to 30 months). Mothers taught their infants four target (novel) words by using distinct objects during a semistructured play episode. Recent research suggests that young infants rely on temporal synchrony to learn syllable–object relations, but later, the role of synchrony diminishes. Thus, mothers' target and nontarget naming were coded for synchrony and other communication styles. The results indicated that mothers used target words more often than nontarget words in synchrony with object motion and sometimes touch. Thus, ‘multimodal motherese’ likely highlights target word-referent relations for infants. Further, mothers tailored their communication to infants' level of lexical-mapping development. Mothers of prelexical infants used target words in synchrony with object motion more often than mothers of early- and advanced-lexical infants. Mothers' decreasing use of synchrony across age parallels infants' decreasing reliance on synchrony, suggesting a dynamical and reciprocal environment–organismic relation.
The ubiquity of songs is at odds with the prevailing view that music has no survival value (e.g., Granit, 1977; Winner, 1982). In particular, the widespread use of songs in child care (Trehub & Schellenberg, 1995) raises questions about their form and function, historically and cross-culturally, and their special link to caregiving. In the present review of singing to infants, we pursue two rather divergent approaches: one descriptive, the other empirical. The descriptive and historical material on songs, which is drawn primarily from anthropological and ethnomusicological sources, provides a context for the limited body of empirical research on songs for infants. Indeed, the descriptive evidence seems to suggest that the practice of singing to infants and many details of song form are rooted in ancient traditions that have survived industrialization and urbanization.
Adolescents and adults commonly use music for various forms of affect regulation, including relaxation, revitalization, distraction, and elicitation of pleasant memories. Mothers throughout the world also sing to their infants, with affect regulation as the principal goal. To date, the study of maternal singing has focused largely on its acoustic features and its consequences for infant attention. We describe recent laboratory research that explores the consequences of singing for infant affect regulation. Such work reveals that listening to recordings of play songs can maintain 6- to 9-month-old infants in a relatively contented or neutral state considerably longer than recordings of infant-directed or adult-directed speech. When 10-month-old infants fuss or cry and are highly aroused, mothers' multimodal singing is more effective than maternal speech at inducing recovery from such distress. Moreover, play songs are more effective than lullabies at reducing arousal in Western infants. We explore the implications of these findings along with possible practical applications.
© 2014 New York Academy of Sciences.
Mothers sing expressively while caring for infants . Initially, such singing is for emotion regulation: for promoting tranquility, sleep, playful engagement, or stress reduction, depending on the context. Infants ' responsiveness to such singing encourages further maternal singing . Mothers act as singing mentors even though their mentoring is initially intuitive versus deliberate, emphasizing pleasure/comfort over precision. Their singing also has intuitive didactic aspects in its emphasis on pitch and temporal structure of songs. The face-to-face context provides infants with performances featuring distinctive visual/vocal gestures. As imitators, infants mimic maternal performances, prompting mothers to become deliberate mentors who coax increasingly complex contributions from infants . Initially, infants make single-syllable contributions to such duets, progressing to phrases and songs. Well before age two, many toddlers produce singing that preserves pitch contours, rhythms, and approximate range of familiar songs. Subsequent educator mentoring can build on these achievements if relationship building and maintenance have priority over skill building.
Musical behaviours are universal across human populations and, at the same time, highly diverse in their structures, roles and cultural interpretations. Although laboratory studies of isolated listeners and music-makers have yielded important insights into sensorimotor and cognitive skills and their neural underpinnings, they have revealed little about the broader significance of music for individuals, peer groups and communities. This review presents a sampling of musical forms and coordinated musical activity across cultures, with the aim of highlighting key similarities and differences. The focus is on scholarly and everyday ideas about music what it is and where it originates as well the antiquity of music and the contribution of musical behaviour to ritual activity, social organization, caregiving and group cohesion. Synchronous arousal, action synchrony and imitative behaviours are among the means by which music facilitates social bonding. The commonalities and differences in musical forms and functions across cultures suggest new directions for ethnomusicology, music cognition and neuroscience, and a pivot away from the predominant scientific focus on instrumental music in the Western European tradition.
Paired excerpts of lullabies and comparison songs from different areas of the world were presented to Western adult listeners, who were required to identify the lullaby in each pair. In Experiment 1, when presented with original field recordings, adults successfully differentiated the lullabies from the other songs. In Experiment 2, this effect was replicated with a more diverse sample of listeners. In addition, feedback about correct performance failed to improve the accuracy of lullaby identification. In Experiment 3, adults successfully identified the lullabies even when all songs were electronically filtered to remove the words. In Experiment 4, adults were unsuccessful in lullaby identification when the melodies were synthesized to remove residual cues associated with voice quality. However, performance on the synthesized materials was correlated with performance on the original materials. Parallels between infant-directed music and infant-directed speech are noted.
We examined the effect of maternal singing on the arousal levels of healthy, non-distressed infants. Mothers sang to their 6-month-old infants for 10 minutes, after which they continued interacting for another 10 minutes. To estimate infant arousal, we gathered saliva samples from infants immediately before the mothers began singing and 20 minutes later. Laboratory analyses of the saliva samples revealed that salivary cortisol levels converged from baseline to post-test periods. Specifically, infants with lower baseline levels exhibited modest cortisol increases in response to maternal singing; those with higher baseline levels exhibited modest reductions. This convergence of arousal levels was confirmed by reduced variability in cortisol values from baseline to post-test. These findings are consistent with the view that maternal singing modulates the arousal of prelinguistic infants. Copyright
Infants prefer speech to non-vocal sounds and to non-human vocalizations, and they prefer happy-sounding speech to neutral speech. They also exhibit an interest in singing, but there is little knowledge of their relative interest in speech and singing. The present study explored infants' attention to unfamiliar audio samples of speech and singing. In Experiment 1, infants 4-13 months of age were exposed to happy-sounding infant-directed speech vs. hummed lullabies by the same woman. They listened significantly longer to the speech, which had considerably greater acoustic variability and expressiveness, than to the lullabies. In Experiment 2, infants of comparable age who heard the lyrics of a Turkish children's song spoken vs. sung in a joyful/happy manner did not exhibit differential listening. Infants in Experiment 3 heard the happily sung lyrics of the Turkish children's song vs. a version that was spoken in an adult-directed or affectively neutral manner. They listened significantly longer to the sung version. Overall, happy voice quality rather than vocal mode (speech or singing) was the principal contributor to infant attention, regardless of age.
Music and speech are often placed alongside one another as comparative cases. Their relative overlaps and disassociations have been well explored (e.g., Patel, 2008). But one key attribute distinguishing these two domains has often been overlooked: the greater preponderance of repetition in music in comparison to speech. Recent fMRI studies have shown that familiarity - achieved through repetition - is a critical component of emotional engagement with music (Pereira et al., 2011). If repetition is fundamental to emotional responses to music, and repetition is a key distinguisher between the domains of music and speech, then close examination of the phenomenon of repetition might help clarify the ways that music elicits emotion differently than speech.
This chapter reviews the development of self-regulation in infants, toddlers, and preschoolers. Particular emphasis is paid to how characteristics of the individual, micro-, and macro-level environment shape how innate regulatory skills are expressed and developed in real world settings. At the individual level, gender, temperament, and clinical conditions are reviewed as they relate to the development of regulatory capacities such as delay of gratification, cognitive control, motor control, and sustained attention. Aspects of the micro-level environment, including home, non-parental care settings, and peer groups, are also considered. How neighborhoods and cultural contexts, features of the macro-level environment, relate to the development of self-regulation is also explored. Possible directions for future research are presented (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
There is strong evidence of shared acoustic profiles common to the expression of emotions in music and speech, yet relatively limited understanding of the specific psychoacoustic features involved. This study combined a controlled experiment and computational modelling to investigate the perceptual codes associated with the expression of emotion in the acoustic domain. The empirical stage of the study provided continuous human ratings of emotions perceived in excerpts of film music and natural speech samples. The computational stage created a computer model that retrieves the relevant information from the acoustic stimuli and makes predictions about the emotional expressiveness of speech and music close to the responses of human subjects. We show that a significant part of the listeners' second-by-second reported emotions to music and speech prosody can be predicted from a set of seven psychoacoustic features: loudness, tempo/speech rate, melody/prosody contour, spectral centroid, spectral flux, sharpness, and roughness. The implications of these results are discussed in the context of cross-modal similarities in the communication of emotion in the acoustic domain.
Mothers were recorded singing two versions of the same song, one to their infants and the other to their preschool children. In Experiment 1, naive adult listeners accurately identified the infant-directed versions from each pair of mothers' songs. Pitch was higher for the infant-directed versions but tempo and intensity did not differ across contexts. In Experiment 2, naive listeners judged which version of each pair sounded more “loving” and which had clearer enunciation of lyrics. The versions sung to preschoolers were rated as more clearly enunciated than those sung to infants. Although there were no differences in “loving” tone of voice, “loving” ratings of infant-directed versions predicted identification accuracy.
Each of 15 mothers was recorded singing a song of her choice to her 4- to 7-month-old and singing the same song alone. Adult raters were very accurate at distinguishing infant-directed from infant-absent versions, and the former were independently rated as more loving than the latter. Most of the songs were consistently classified as either playsongs or lullabies. The infant-directed playsongs were rated as relatively more rhythmic than the infant-directed lullabies, in comparison to the infant-absent versions. These results suggest that playsongs and lullabies may be distinct and used to communicate different information. Infant preferences were tested for three playsong and three lullaby pairs in a preferential looking paradigm. Infants preferred the infant-directed over infant-absent versions for five of the six pairs. Furthermore, the degree of preference was correlated with the adult ratings of loving tone of voice. The results indicate that mothers modify their singing in the presence of their infants, that infants attend to these changes, that playsongs and lullabies are likely distinct musical styles differing in their rhythmic quality, and that what adults perceive to be a loving tone of voice is highly salient to infants.
Acoustic differences between infant-directed and noninfant-directed singing were examined in 6 playsong and 4 lullaby pairs of recordings from Trainor (1996). Each mother had been recorded singing a song of her choice to her infant and singing the same song in the absence of her infant. For both playsongs and lullabies the tempo was slower, there was relatively more energy at lower frequencies, inter-phrase pauses were lengthened, and the pitch and jitter factor were higher in the infant-directed over infant-absent versions. Pitch variability was higher and the rhythm exaggerated (as measured by the relative duration of stressed to unstressed syllables) in the infant-directed versions of playsongs but not lullabies. Many of these acoustic modifications likely attract infants' attention, and playsongs and lullabies likely communicate different emotional messages.
We explored the relationship between vocal expressiveness in song and maternal attachment representation. Mothers (N=36), classified as Autonomous, Dismissing, or Preoccupied, sang a play song of their choice in their 6-month-old infants’ presence and absence. Raters (N=50) who were naı̈ve to maternal attachment classifications listened to excerpts of each song rendition and rated mothers’ emotional involvement. Mothers, regardless of their attachment classification, sang more expressively in their infants’ presence than otherwise. Unique patterns of vocal expressiveness were associated with different maternal attachment classifications, but only under conditions of infant distress. Unlike Autonomous and Preoccupied mothers, who sang less playfully to distressed than to nondistressed infants, the playfulness of Dismissing mothers’ performances was unrelated to infant affect. These findings support the hypothesis that maternal attachment influences the nature of emotive vocal communication, but only under conditions of infant distress.
This paper investigates the dependence of perceived timbral brightness on pitch and spectral centroid for single notes and pairs of simultaneous notes. In both cases, brightness is better correlated with the spectral centroid fc than with the ratio of fc to the pitches of the notes.
Smiling is a universally recognized visible expression of happiness. A side effect of smiling is an alteration of the vocal
tract, suggesting that during vocalization smiling may be heard as well as seen. The present studies investigated this hypothesis.
Smiled and straight-faced tokens of 29 utterances were collected from six speakers, and presented to three groups of 12 subjects
for forced-choice identification. Groups 1 and 2, instructed to select the. smiled or happier sound, respectively, performed
significantly better than chance for all speakers. Group 3, asked to select the sadder sound, chose the straight-faced token
reliably :For four speakers, but for one also picked the smiled token. Acoustic analyses showed that smiling raised the fundamental
and formant frequencies for all speakers and amplitude and/or duration for some. Particular cue combinations appear to be
heard as smiling specifically, whereas others are associated with emotionality in general.
Mothers were recorded singing a song of their choice in both a lullaby style and a play-song style to their 6-month-olds. Adult raters identified the play-song-style and lullaby-style versions with 100% accuracy. Play-song-style renditions were rated as being more brilliant, clipped, and rhythmic and as having more smiling and more prominent consonants. Lullaby-style renditions were characterized as being more airy, smooth, and soothing. Adults observed videotapes (without sound) of 6-month-olds listening to alternating lullaby-style and play-song-style trials and performed at above chance levels when determining which music the infants were hearing. Coding analyses revealed that infants focused their attention more toward themselves during lullaby-style trials and more toward the external world during play-song-style trials. These results suggest that singing may be used to regulate infants' states and to communicate emotional information.
Infants and young children with Down syndrome can be engaging and affectionate. It seems that in the early months of life their personal relations may be relatively 'spared' the effects of limitations in their capacities for information-processing. Yet how far is this the case as development proceeds? In this paper we discuss some ways in which social and cognitive development interact and mutually influence one another over the first year or so of life, and present preliminary findings from a longitudinal study of infants with and without Down syndrome. The evidence suggests that the development of 'triadic' (person-person-world) social interactions may be affected by limited information-processing capacities in infants with Down syndrome, through a complex socially-mediated developmental trajectory.
Many authors have speculated about a close relationship between vocal expression of emotions and musical expression of emotions. but evidence bearing on this relationship has unfortunately been lacking. This review of 104 studies of vocal expression and 41 studies of music performance reveals similarities between the 2 channels concerning (a) the accuracy with which discrete emotions were communicated to listeners and (b) the emotion-specific patterns of acoustic cues used to communicate each emotion. The patterns are generally consistent with K. R. Scherer's (1986) theoretical predictions. The results can explain why music is perceived as expressive of emotion, and they are consistent with an evolutionary perspective on vocal expression of emotions. Discussion focuses on theoretical accounts and directions for future research.
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This volume provides a developmental perspective of the regulation and dysregulation of emotion, in particular, how children learn about feelings and how they learn to deal with both positive and negative feelings. Emotion regulation involves the interaction of physical, behavioural and cognitive processes in response to changes in one's emotional state. The changes can be brought on by factors internal to the individual (e.g. biological) or external (e.g. other people). Featuring contributions from leading researchers in developmental psychopathology, the volume concentrates on theories and data concerning the development of emotion regulation with an emphasis on both intrapersonal and interpersonal processes. Original conceptualizations of the reciprocal influences among the various response systems - neurophysiological-biochemical, behavioral-expressive, and subjective-experiential - are provided, and the individual chapters address both normal and psychopathological forms of emotion regulation, particularly depression and aggression, from infancy through adolescence. This book will appeal to specialists in developmental, clinical and social psychology, psychiatry, education, and others interested in understanding the developmental processes involved in the regulation of emotion over the course of childhood.
Infants learn how to regulate internal states and subsequent behavior through dyadic interactions with caregivers. During infant-directed (ID) singing, mothers help infants practice attentional control and arousal modulation, thus providing critical experience in self-regulation. Infants with Down syndrome are known to have attention deficits and delayed information processing as well as difficulty managing arousability, factors that may disrupt their efforts at self-regulation.
The researcher explored responses to ID singing in infants with Down syndrome (DS) and compared them with those of typically developing (TD) infants. Behaviors measured included infant gaze and affect as indicators of self-regulation.
Participants included 3- to 9-month-old infants with and without DS who were videotaped throughout a 2-minute face-to-face interaction during which their mothers sang to them any song(s) of their choosing. Infant behavior was then coded for percentage of time spent demonstrating a specific gaze or affect type.
All infants displayed sustained gaze more than any other gaze type. TD infants demonstrated intermittent gaze significantly more often than infants with DS. Infant status had no effect on affect type, and all infants showed predominantly neutral affect.
Findings suggest that ID singing effectively maintains infant attention for both TD infants and infants with DS. However, infants with DS may have difficulty shifting attention during ID singing as needed to adjust arousal levels and self-regulate. High levels of neutral affect for all infants imply that ID singing is likely to promote a calm, curious state, regardless of infant status.
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This study explores the relationship between tonal synchrony and maternal-infant social engagement based on free-play recordings of 15 mothers and their 3-month-old infants in a laboratory setting. Moment-by-moment analyses on a microlevel were used to study social engagement and vocal interaction. We analysed and categorized 854 vocalization periods (mother-only vocalizations, tonal interaction periods, nontonal interaction periods, and mutual silence). Tonal synchrony was analysed in terms of harmonic and pentatonic series based on pitch frequency analyses. Social engagement was microanalyzed in terms of matched and mismatched engagement states. ANOVA-repeated measures revealed, most importantly, a significant relationship between TIPs and social interaction repair, which indicates the importance of tonal synchrony in the flow of social engagement in mother–infant dyads. Other significant relationships were found between (a) nTIPs/mismatch–mismatch, and, (b) MOV/affect loss. As mentioned in the discussion, the findings are suggestive for clinical applications (e.g., music therapy) and warrant further research.
This article discusses the relationship between musical structure and perceived expression. Musical structure is an umbrella term for a host of factors, such as tempo, loudness, pitch, intervals, mode, melody, rhythm, harmony, and various formal aspects (e.g. repetition, variation, transposition). The discussion focuses on perceived expression rather than expression somehow inherent in the music. The listener may apprehend music as 'pure' music (absolutism) or as expression of emotions, characters, events, or whatever, and may very well alternate, consciously or unconsciously, between different approaches during the course of a piece. The focus will be on referential meaning.
Infants with Down syndrome constitute an ideal population for analysing the development of emotional expression from the first months of life, due basically to the fact that this chromosomal alteration is identifiable from birth and results in well-known difficulties of cognitive development and in basic learning processes. Taking into account the functional aspects of facial expression during initial social interaction, in this review we present a series of studies which, although based on different theoretical approaches and different methodologies, have the common objective of analysing the emotional behaviour of young infants with and without Down syndrome during face-to-face interaction with their mothers. The main conclusions emerging from these studies are: (a) that, as in the case of typically developing infants, Down syndrome infants and their mothers present a series of coordinated and interdependent expressive interchanges; (b) that, despite the differences found between infants with and without Down syndrome in quantitative parameters of expressive behaviour, such as frequency, duration and intensity of the different emotional expressions or their point of initiation in development, what seems to be most significant is the clear functional similarity observed in the two groups of subjects during initial mother-infant interaction; and (c) that these differences may be understood by considering different psychobiological explanations as well as the known cognitive deficits.
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An experiment was performed to evaluate the effects of spectral modifications on the similarity structure for a set of musical timbres. The stimuli were 16 music instrument tones, 8 of which were modified in pairs. This modification consisted of exchanging the shape of the spectral energy distribution between the two tones within each pair. The three‐dimensional spatial representation of similarities among the 16 tones was obtained by multidimensional scaling techniques and compared to a previous scaling of the original 16 unmodified tones [J. M. Grey, J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 61, 1270–1277 (1977)]. The pairs of tones which had exchanged spectral shapes in fact exchanged orders on the spatial axis which had been previously interpreted as relating to spectral shape, thereby supporting the earlier interpretation. The two remaining axes of the spatial solution also retained their original interpretations, relating to various temporal details of the tones. A set of formal quantitative models for the spectral dimension was constructed and tested, and the results further supported the interpretation of this perceptual axis.
We examined infants' attention to sound sequences as a function of the regularity of timing and the relative familiarity of the sequences (first five trials and last five trials). Infants' attention to the regular and irregular sequences was assessed by a means of a preferential looking (listening) procedure. Infants 6-8 months of age listened longer to the regular sound sequences, but only during the last five trials. Infants 9-11 months of age did not show evidence of differential listening on the basis of sequence regularity, but their attention waned from earlier to later trials. © 2005 by the Regents of the University of California All rights reserved.
The aim of this study was to investigate the temporal structure of mother-infant interactions with songs, with particular attention to two aspects: 1) the singing of the mothers to their infants, and 2) the non-verbal behaviours mothers and infants produce in synchrony with the musical beat. Four mother-infant dyads were video-recorded when the infants were 3-4 months of age and again when they were 7-8 months old. Mothers were asked to sing songs of their choice while interacting with their infants. Analyses of the mothers' singing and synchronous behaviours with the beat revealed that they emphasized the hierarchical structure of the song and provided a segmentation of the temporal structure of the interaction. Infants were shown to be sensitive to their mothers' emphasis by producing significantly more synchronous behaviours on some beats than on others. It is suggested that the multimodal sensory information provided by the mothers ensures the infants' effective learning and conveys the characteristics of what could be called 'songese' - the equivalent of 'motherese'.
This longitudinal study compared the temporal characteristics of maternal singing at 3 and then at 6 months. Infant-directed (ID) singing is claimed to have different functions in preverbal communication. However few studies have focused on the specific characteristics of ID singing that change across the first months of life. We aimed to explore these changes between 3 and 6 months because musical routines become prominent in the repertoire of games parents and infants spontaneously play during a period referred to as 'the period of games'. We focused specifically on expressive timing because it reflects how mothers dynamically adapt their singing to their infant's states of attention and involvement. We aimed to determine whether the expressive timing cues of maternal singing would be different at 3 and then at 6 months. To this end, the interactions of 18 mother-infant dyads were recorded while mothers were singing a popular French playsong for their infant at 3 and then at 6 months. Acoustic analyses revealed that mothers showed final-lengthening and tempo slowing for both age groups, but marked the ends of the hierarchical structural units of the song more saliently with their 6-month-olds. Unexpectedly, infant sex was also found to affect maternal singing: more exaggerated phrase-lengthening patterns were observed in singing to girls.
Characterising how socio-cognitive abilities develop has been crucial to understanding the wider devel-opment of typically developing children. It is equally central to understanding developmental pathways in children with intellectual disabilities such as Down's syndrome. While the process of acquisition of socio-cognitive abilities in typical development and in autism has received consider-able attention, socio-cognitive development in Down's syndrome has received far less scrutiny. Initial work in the 1970s and 1980s provided impor-tant insights into the emergence of socio-cognitive abilities in the children's early years, and recently there has been a marked revival of interest in this area, with research focusing both on a broader range of abilities and on a wider age range. This annotation reviews some of these more recent find-ings, identifies outstanding gaps in current under-standing, and stresses the importance of the development of theory in advancing research and knowledge in this field. Barriers to theory building are discussed and the potential utility of adopting a transactional approach to theory building illustrated with reference to a model of early socio-cognitive development in Down's syndrome. The need for a more extensive model of social cognition is empha-sised, as is the need for larger-scale, finer-grained, longitudinal work which recognises the within-individual and within-group variability which char-acterises this population. The value of drawing on new technologies and of adapting innovative research paradigms from other areas of typical and atypical child psychology is also highlighted.
Caregivers around the world sing to their infants. Infants not only prefer to listen to infant-directed singing over adult-directed singing, but infant-directed singing also serves a function, communicating affective information to preverbal infants to aid in adjusting arousal levels. Pitch variation has previously been identified as one performance feature that may help to convey the message. Earlier research has indicated that infants' pitch preferences are context dependent, suggesting that infants are tuned in to the communicative intent of infant-directed singing. However, there are several other performance-based features present in infant-directed singing that may also contribute to the affective message. The current study examined the role of context on infants' tempo preferences in sung playsongs and lullabies. Using a head-turn preference procedure, we measured 24 preverbal infants' natural preferences for foreign language playsongs and lullabies as a function of tempo. Infants showed a preference for fast over slow tempo playsongs, but no such context dependent preference was found within lullabies. Results partially support the role of tempo as a communicative feature of infant directed singing.
Preverbal infants are attuned to the different emotional messages contained in playsongs and lullabies. However, it is unclear which performance properties of singing underlie infants' perception of the communicative intent of infant-directed singing. Volkova, Trehub, and Schellenberg (2006) recently demonstrated that 6- and 7-month-old infants preferred low-pitched to high-pitched renditions of lullabies, suggesting that pitch may be one performance characteristic that conveys the communicative intent in infant-directed singing. In the current study, we evaluated 6- and 7-month-old infants' natural preferences for unfamiliar, expressive lullabies and playsongs as a function of pitch using a head-turn preference procedure. Infants preferred low-pitched over high-pitched versions of lullabies and high-pitched over low-pitched versions of playsongs. Results suggest that the overall pitch of a song is communicative to infants and that the affective nature of music can have an effect on infants' pitch preferences. That is, infants' preferences for pitch are context-dependent.
We investigated whether 1-year-old infants use their shared experience with an adult to determine the meaning of a pointing gesture. In the first study, after two adults had each shared a different activity with the infant, one of the adults pointed to a target object. Eighteen- but not 14-month-olds responded appropriately to the pointing gesture based on the particular activity they had previously shared with that particular adult. In the second study, 14-month-olds were successful in a simpler procedure in which the pointing adult either had or had not shared a relevant activity with the infant prior to the pointing. Infants just beginning to learn language thus already show a complex understanding of the pragmatics of cooperative communication in which shared experience with particular individuals plays a crucial role.
Since its introduction, the Sundberg model of the laryngeal system as the resonance source of the singer's formant has gained wide acceptance. However, no studies directly testing this hypothesis in vivo have previously been reported. Thus, the present study was undertaken to test this hypothesis on three classically trained professional male singers. The vocal behaviors of the singer-subjects were evaluated during model and pulse register phonation via magnetic resonance imaging, strobolaryngoscopy, and acoustic analysis. Results indicated the subjects did not achieve the laryngopharyngeal/laryngeal outlet cross-sectional area ratio requisite to the model and that the formant remained robust in pulse register phonation. It was concluded that these subjects' behaviors were not consistent with Sundberg's model and that the model was inadequate to account for the generation of the singer's formant in these three subjects.
In the early months of life, infants acquire information about the phonetic properties of their native language simply by listening to adults speak. The acoustic properties of phonetic units in language input to young infants in the United States, Russia, and Sweden were examined. In all three countries, mothers addressing their infants produced acoustically more extreme vowels than they did when addressing adults, resulting in a "stretching" of vowel space. The findings show that language input to infants provides exceptionally well-specified information about the linguistic units that form the building blocks for words.
To present the conclusions and associated recommendations for care developed by the Physical and Developmental Environment of the High-Risk Infant Center, Study Group on Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) Sound, and the Expert Review Panel.
A multidisciplinary group of clinicians and researchers reviewed the literature regarding the effect of sound on the fetus, newborn, and preterm infant and developed recommendations based on the best evidence. An Expert Review Panel reviewed the data and conclusions.
The following recommendations are developed from the review of the literature and are clarified in the body of the article. (1) Women should avoid prolonged exposure to low-frequency sound levels (< 250 Hz) above 65 dB(A) during pregnancy. (2) Earphones or other devices for sound production should not be used directly attached to the pregnant woman's abdomen. (3) The voice of the mother during normal daily activities, along with the sounds produced by her body and those present in her usual surroundings, is sufficient for normal fetal auditory development. The fetus does not require supplemental stimulation. Programs to supplement the fetal auditory experience cannot be recommended. (4) Infant intensive care units should incorporate a system of regular noise assessment. (5) Sound limit recommendations are to maintain a nursery with an hourly Leq of 50 dB(A), an hourly L10 of 55 dB(A) and a 1-second Lmax of 70 dB(A), all A-weighted, slow response scale. (6) Infant intensive care units should develop and maintain a program of noise control and abatement in order to operate within the recommended permissible noise criteria. (7) Care practices must provide ample opportunity for the infant to hear parent voices live in interaction between parent and infant at the bedside. (8) Earphones and other devices attached to the infant's ears for sound transmission should not be used at any time. (9) There is little evidence to support the use of recorded music or speech in the environment of the high-risk infant. Audio recordings should not be used routinely or left unattended in the environment of the high-risk infant.
The recommendations, if followed, should provide an environment that will protect sleep, support stable vital signs, improve speech intelligibility for the infant, and reduce potential adverse effects on auditory development.
Seventy, 6-9-month-old infants were videotaped during six interactions: mother sings assigned song, "stranger" sings assigned song, mother sings song of choice, mother reads book, mother plays with toy, and mother and infant listen to recorded music. Infant-directed (ID) singing conditions elicited moderately positive cognitive behavior, low levels of positive physical behavior and minimal amounts of vocal behaviors, mostly negative. Across all conditions, cognitive scores remained positive at low to moderate levels. Physical responses were most positive during book and toy, most negative during recorded music, and differed by gender, especially during ID singing. Vocally, infants responded positively to toy, and 8-month-old infants vocalized more than younger infants, particularly during ID singing conditions. ID singing appears just as effective as book reading or toy play in sustaining infant attention and far more effective than listening to recorded music, while interactions involving objects may provide opportunity for shared attention.
Synchrony, a construct used across multiple fields to denote the temporal relationship between events, is applied to the study of parent-infant interactions and suggested as a model for intersubjectivity. Three types of timed relationships between the parent and child's affective behavior are assessed: concurrent, sequential, and organized in an ongoing patterned format, and the development of each is charted across the first year. Viewed as a formative experience for the maturation of the social brain, synchrony impacts the development of self-regulation, symbol use, and empathy across childhood and adolescence. Different patterns of synchrony with mother, father, and the family and across cultures describe relationship-specific modes of coordination. The capacity to engage in temporally-matched interactions is based on physiological mechanisms, in particular oscillator systems, such as the biological clock and cardiac pacemaker, and attachment-related hormones, such as oxytocin. Specific patterns of synchrony are described in a range of child-, parent- and context-related risk conditions, pointing to its ecological relevance and usefulness for the study of developmental psychopathology. A perspective that underscores the organization of discrete relational behaviors into emergent patterns and considers time a central parameter of emotion and communication systems may be useful to the study of interpersonal intimacy and its potential for personal transformation across the lifespan.
The developmental trajectories of specific forms of maternal touch during natural caregiving were examined across the first year in relation to the development of mother-infant reciprocal communication. One hundred and thirty-one mothers and infants in four groups aged 3, 6, 9, and 12 months were observed in a cross-sectional design at home during natural caregiving and mother-child play sessions. Microanalytic coding of the caregiving sessions considered nine forms of maternal touch, which were aggregated into three global touch categories: affectionate, stimulating, and instrumental. Play sessions were coded for maternal sensitivity and dyadic reciprocity. Maternal affectionate and stimulating touch decreased significantly during the second 6 months of life. In parallel, dyadic reciprocity increased in the second half year. Dyadic reciprocity was predicted by the frequency of affectionate touch but not by any other form of touch. Results contribute to specifying the role of touch as it evolves across the first year of life within the global mother-infant communication system.
Caregiver influences on biological and behavioral aspects of emotion regulation
- S D Calkins
- A Hill
Calkins, S. D., & Hill, A. (2007). Caregiver influences on biological and behavioral aspects of emotion regulation. In J. J. Gross (Ed.). Handbook of emotion regulation
(pp. 229-248). New York: The Guilford Press.
Acoustic parameters of infant-directed singing in mothers with depressive symptoms. Infant Behavior and Development
- S K De L'etoile
- C N Leider
de l'Etoile, S. K., & Leider, C. N. (2011). Acoustic parameters of infant-directed singing in mothers with depressive symptoms. Infant Behavior and Development, 34,
248-256. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.infbeh2010.12.013.