The Tuning of Human Neonates' Preference for Speech

• Published in: Child development Vol. 81; no. 2; pp. 517 - 527
• Main Authors: Vouloumanos, Athena, Hauser, Marc D., Werker, Janet F., Martin, Alia
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Oxford, UK Blackwell Publishing Ltd 01.03.2010; Wiley-Blackwell
• Subjects: Acoustic Stimulation; Animal vocalization; Animals; Arousal; Attention; Auditory Perception; Auditory Stimuli; Babies; Biological and medical sciences; Child Development; Choice Behavior; Cognition & reasoning; Comparative Analysis; Developmental psychology; EMPIRICAL ARTICLES; Evaluation Methods; Female; Follow-Up Studies; Fundamental and applied biological sciences. Psychology; Humans; Infant, Newborn - psychology; Infants; Language acquisition; Language Development; Listening; Macaca mulatta; Male; Monkeys; Neonates; Newborn babies; Newborn. Infant; Newborns; Perception; Preferences; Primates; Primatology; Psychology, Child; Psychology. Psychoanalysis. Psychiatry; Psychology. Psychophysiology; Rhesus monkeys; Sound; Sound pitch; Sound Spectrography; Species; Speech; Speech Communication; Speech Perception; Vocalization; Vocalization, Animal; Human; Hearing; Newborn; Language; Perception; Infant; Speech; Cognition; Verbal perception; Stimulus preference; Experimental study

Human neonates prefer listening to speech compared to many nonspeech sounds, suggesting that humans are born with a bias for speech. However, neonates' preference may derive from properties of speech that are not unique but instead are shared with the vocalizations of other species. To test thi...