The effects of within-group and between-group methodologies in the study of perceptions of infant crying

Recent studies have indicated that various infant cry patterns can be reliably distinguished when directly compared with other infant cry patterns. The purpose of this study was to compare the effects of this within-group method of cry presentation (in which listeners are exposed to 2 types of cry patterns) with the effects of a between-group methodology (in which listeners are exposed to only 1 type of infant cry pattern). 4 groups of adult listeners rated the tape-recorded cries of low- and high-risk infants on 4 Likert-type scale items during experimental phases. In phase 1, subjects were exposed to either the cries of low-risk or high-risk infants but not both. In phase 2, subjects were exposed to both low-risk and high-risk infant cries. In phase 3, subjects were exposed to the cries they heard in phase 1. Whereas all scale items differentiated the low- and high-risk infant cries during the within-group analyses of phase 2, all scale items did not differentiate low- and high-risk infant cries during the between-group phase of the experiment. The specific pattern of results indicate that within-group methods of cry presentation accentuate the perceptual distance among cry types and may actually create many reliable differences that would not be found in between-group comparisons.     

Psychophysiological and perceptual responses to infant cries varying in pitch: comparison of adults with low and high scores on the Child Abuse Potential Inventory.

Based on their scores on the Child Abuse Potential (CAP) Inventory, 30 nonparent adults were classified as either having high CAP scores (n = 15) or low CAP scores (n = 15). Subjects' heart rate and skin conductance were assessed as they listened to audio-taped presentations of four "normal" phonated infant cries and four high-pitched, hyperphonated infant cries. Subjects also rated the cries on several perceptual items. Results showed that both groups of subjects found hyperphonated cries more aversive, distressing, urgent, arousing, and sick than phonated cry sounds. Similarly, all listeners' showed higher skin conductance levels (SCL) in response to hyperphonated than phonated cries. SCL became attenuated over time in response to phonated, but not hyperphonated, cries. Adults in the high-CAP group, showed marginally higher heart rates than low-CAP adults following presentation of all infant cry sounds and responded to phonated cries with marginally higher skin conductance levels than low-CAP adults. The responses of high-CAP nonparent adults are similar to those of parents with histories of physically abusive interactions with their infants.     

Infant Crying and Adults'' Anticipated Caregiving Responses: Acoustic and Contextual Influences

These studies assessed adults' latencies to signal that they would respond to infant crying as functions of (1) the degree of infant distress they perceived in the cry, and (2) contextual information relevant to caregiving. In the first study (N = 34), listeners waited longer to respond to cries that they had earlier rated as sounding less distressed than when they heard cries of higher distress. Further, those who had been told that the infant needed sleep waited longer to respond than those without this information. This effect of context information, however, was limited to the latencies; in another study (N = 50), listeners' ratings of distress were not affected. Several acoustic features of the cries correlated with distress ratings and with latencies to signal a caregiving response. Taken together, the results suggest that adults' responses to crying are influenced both by acoustic gradations in the cry itself and by the caregiving context. Ratings of degree of distress manifest in the cry, in other words, may be highly predictive of caregiving behavior but not wholly so. Finally, although certain acoustic variations related to greater perceived distress and speed of response, differences were apparent between infants in the magnitude of these variations. The implication that the general process of cry perception may be calibrated, or fine tuned, to the range of acoustic variation provided by individual infants is discussed.     

Prenatal Predictors of Postnatal Quality of Caregiving Behavior in Mothers and Fathers

SYNOPSIS

Objective. The quality of parental caregiving has been shown to affect children’s development from birth onward. Therefore, it is important to detect parents at risk for low-quality caregiving as early as possible – preferably before birth. Design. Observations of expectant mothers’ and fathers’ behavior when exposed to infant crying were examined as predictors of the quality of caregiving toward their own infant 6 weeks postpartum. Eighty-eight expectant mothers and 57 of their male partners were tested during the third trimester of pregnancy. Parents were filmed individually while caring for a crying Simulator Infant for 15 min; the quality of their caregiving was rated on sensitivity and cooperation. Also, cognitive interference on a working memory task and the ability to regulate physical force when exposed to infant crying were assessed. When their baby was 6 weeks old, parents were filmed and rated for sensitivity and cooperation during a 15-min interaction with their own infant at home. Results. Prenatal quality of caregiving behavior toward a simulator infant predicted postnatal quality of caregiving toward the own infant in both mothers and fathers. Cognitive interference and the ability to regulate physical force did not predict postnatal quality of caregiving behavior. Conclusions. Expectant parents’ quality of caregiving behavior toward a crying simulator infant predicted both mothers’ and fathers’ postnatal quality of caregiving behavior. Future research is needed to determine whether the simulator infant may be a useful screening instrument and training tool for parenting skills in at risk groups of parents-to-be.     

On the importance of fundamental frequency and other acoustic features in cry perception and infant development

This study examined acoustic correlates of adults' ratings of infants' cries. Parents and nonparents rated 12 spontaneous cries from young infants on 8 items describing the cries' aversiveness and on 9 semantic differential items. The results indicated that the duration, the amount of dysphonation, and proportion of energy in various frequency bands were highly correlated with adults' ratings. Further, the pattern of correlations between each of the 17 rating scale items and the acoustic attributes was virtually the same, suggesting that the items represented a single underlying dimension of perceived aversiveness. Finally, no differences were found between the results for parents and nonparents. General issues in the study of cry perception are discussed.     

What Men Do When a Baby Cries: Increasing Testosterone May Lead to Less Nurturant Care but More Environmental Vigilance

SYNOPSIS

Infants’ crying modulates parental behaviors, which in turn, ideally, lead to calming the infant. The mutually beneficial reciprocity between infants’ and parents’ behaviors is conserved across mammalian species. Although some studies highlight similarities in responses to infant cries across gender, other studies report differences in their behaviors and brain activity. Zeifman and colleagues in this Special Issue found that high levels of infant crying can trigger increases in testosterone in men, which is accompanied by less sensitive caregiving. Some interpret males’ lack of sensitive caregiving as neglectful, but these results could be considered as evolutionarily adaptive. Specifically, increases in testosterone levels from intense infant cries could lead to increased vigilance and alertness toward external stimuli, and thus allow males to be better equipped to protect their young.     

Verbal and Behavioral Responsiveness to the Cries of Atypical Infants

A total of 176 subjects (53 male students, 65 female students, and 58 mothers) were exposed to 1 of 6 types of infant cries coming from an adjacent room while their behavioral and affective responses were observed. The cries were the pain cries of 2 normal newborns, 1 infant with maladie du cri du chat, 1 with Down syndrome, 1 asphyxiated infant with brain damage, and one asphyxiated infant without brain damage. Subsequently the subjects rated the overhead cry on a series of affective, attributional, and perceptual dimensions. The results indicated that the 6 cries differentially affected the subjects' affective, self-reported, and behavioral responses, as well as their tendency to report not hearing the cry. In general, the findings suggested that the highest- pitched cries (those of the asphyxiated infants), in comparison to the lowest-pitched cries (those of the normal and Down infants), elicited less optimal responses from the listeners.     

Adult Perception of Emotion Intensity in Human Infant Cries: Effects of Infant Age and Cry Acoustics

The relation between adult perception of emotion intensity in the cries of 1- and 6-month-old infants and the acoustic characteristics of the cries was examined. In the first study, adults who were inexperienced in child care rated 40 cries on 3 emotion intensity scales: anger, fear, and distress. The cries of 6-month-olds were rated as being significantly more intense. Different acoustic variables accounted for emotion intensity ratings for the 2 infant ages. Peak amplitude and noisiness of the cry predicted adult judgments of intensity ratings of 1-month-olds' cries; a measure of amplitude ratio (in 2 frequency bands) was the best predictor of intensity ratings of 6-month-olds' cries. In the second study, parents of infants rated the same cries on the same scales. They also rated the older infants' cries as being more intense. The 2 adult groups did not differ on their ratings, and a regression equation derived from one adult group predicted the other adult group's rating of the same infant age better than it predicted its own ratings for the other infant age. Infant age, and its associated acoustic features, seems to be a more important determinant of adults' perception of emotion intensity than are such adult characteristics as gender or infant-care experience.     

Adult perceptions of pain and hunger cries: a synchrony of arousal

180 male and female nonparent adults rated tape-recordings of the initial, middle, and final 10-sec segments of pain and hunger cries on 4 7-point Likert-type scale items describing how urgent, arousing, aversive, and sick the cry segments sounded. Multivariate analyses of variance showed that the final segment of the pain cry was perceived as less urgent, arousing, and aversive than the initial and middle segments. The hunger cry was perceived as increasingly more urgent, arousing, and aversive from the initial to the middle to the final cry segments, with the final segment receiving higher ratings than the final segment of the pain cry. The middle segment of both cries was the most sick sounding. While females were more aroused than males as the hunger cry intensified, and females were less aroused than males as the pain cry subsided, the initial segments of the pain cry were particularly potent stimuli to both males and females. These results suggest that different segments of cries resulting from the same stimulus provide different messages that communicate the presumed level of infant arousal.     

Impact of child noncompliance on stress appraisals, attributions, and disciplinary choices in mothers at high and low risk for child physical abuse

OBJECTIVE: The study investigated the impact of repeated child noncompliance on stress appraisals, attributions, and disciplinary choices in high- and low-risk mothers. METHOD: Fifty (25 high-risk and 25 demographically, matched low-risk) mothers responded to questions related to stress appraisals, attributions, and disciplinary choices following presentations of a child engaging in repeated noncompliance. RESULTS: After repeated child noncompliance, high-risk, compared to low-risk, mothers perceived more threat and uncontrollability, rated child behaviors as more stressful, and reported higher levels of negative affect. High-risk mothers also reported more stable, global, and intentional attributions, with a trend toward more internal attributions, but did not differ in their evaluations of wrongness and seriousness of the child's behavior. After repeated noncompliance, a risk group difference was found in estimates of future child compliance but not in the use of power assertive discipline. CONCLUSIONS: Results support the view that high-risk, relative to low-risk, mothers are differentially responsive to stressful situations and differ in their attributions for negative child behaviors and in their expectations of future child compliance. However, since risk group differences in disciplinary choices were not also found, additional research is needed to demonstrate the process through which risk group cognitive and affective differences are related to differences in disciplinary behavior.     

Crying and infant abuse in rhesus monkeys

This study investigated the relation between crying and infant abuse in group-living rhesus monkeys (Macaca mulatta). The subjects were 10 abusive mothers with their infants and 10 control mother-infant pairs. Abused infants cried more frequently than controls in the first 12 weeks of life, even when cries immediately following abuse were excluded from the analysis. The coos of 5 abused infants differed from those of 5 controls in several acoustic parameters, whereas their screams and geckers were acoustically similar, when recorded in the same context. Abusive mothers were less likely than control mothers to respond positively to the cries of their infants. Although infant cries may increase the probability of abuse being repeated, infant crying per se does not appear to be a major determinant of abuse.     

Employed mothers and family day-care substitute caregivers: a comparative analysis of infant care

Despite dramatic increases in recent decades in the number of employed mothers with children under 3 years of age and the greater utilization of nonmaternal child-care services (particularly unregulated family day care), little is known about the nature and quality of care provided to these infants by their employed mothers and substitute caregivers. This study was conducted to provide a comparative assessment of maternal and nonmaternal infant caregiving practices in own-home and unregulated family day-care homes, respectively. 30 caregivers (10 employed mothers, 10 substitute caregivers, and 10 nonemployed mothers) were observed in interaction with 5-6-month-old infants using Yarrow, Rubenstein, and Pedersen's Home Environment and Mother-Infant Interaction scales. While no differences were observed in the caregiving of employed and nonemployed mothers, both of these groups exceeded the sitters in socially mediated stimulation, contingent responsiveness, positive affect, and overall level and variety of social stimulation. In addition, employed mothers provided more tactile-kinesthetic, visual, and auditory stimulation to their infants than did the substitute caregivers. However, no differences were found between the infants reared in the home and day-care settings in Bayley Mental and Psychomotor developmental abilities. Evidence implicated group size (total number of children) in the quality of caregiving in family day-care homes. The impact of daily separations and qualitatively different caregiving experiences on infants is discussed.     

Determinants of Complexity in Mexican-American and Anglo-American Mothers' Conceptions of Child Development

Complexity of parental reasoning about child development was studied in mothers who varied in ethnic background and biculturalism. Middle-class mothers from Mexican-American and Anglo-American backgrounds were compared on their level of concepts of development on a scale from categorical to perspectivistic reasoning. Categorical mothers interpreted child development as being caused by single constitutional or environmental factors. Perspectivistic mothers interpreted development as the result of the dynamic interplay between constitution and environment over time and accepted that the same developmental outcome could have multiple determinants. In a comparison among moderately acculturated Mexican-Americans, highly acculturated Mexican Americans, and Anglo Americans, the highly acculturated Mexican-American group scored as more perspectivistic than the other two groups, despite the fact that the Anglo-Americans were the most acculturated. When the 2 Mexican-American groups were subdivided into monocultural (Mexican or American) and bicultural subgroups and compared with the Anglo-American group, the bicultural subgroup of the highly acculturated Mexican-American mothers was the most perspectivistic. These results suggest a complex picture of diversity in Mexican-American mothers who retain values and beliefs from their own culture, as well as taking on values and beliefs of the American culture. Maternal intelligence and adherence to traditional cultural values were not found to correlate significantly with level of developmental reasoning.     

Embracing the Biological Roots of the Infant’s Cry

SYNOPSIS

Across species of mammals, the cry of a young infant has profound effects on the parent’s brain, physiology, emotions, and behavior. High levels of infant crying can trigger increases in testosterone in men, which is accompanied by less sensitive caregiving. By learning about the biological roots and essential functions of the infant’s cry, parents may be empowered to take steps to manage the stress that is inherently induced by these cries.     

Children's emotions and behaviors in response to infants' cries

Infant crying can elicit in others both a range of emotions and contrasting behavioral reactions, such as altruistic caregiving versus aggression. Variations in reactions to young infants' cries were examined in 60 children ranging in age from late preschool to preadolescence. Each child over-heard either a preterm or a full-term tape-recorded cry from an adjacent room. Then a mother, carrying her infant, came looking for her (previously) "crying" infant's bottle. Later each child was interviewed after hearing a tape recording of a preterm and a full-term cry. Children's emotions and behaviors thus were assessed in response to simulated, real distresses and hypothetical representations of distress. Children's self-reports of empathy, their verbalized intentions to help, their actual helping responses, and observers' ratings of negative emotion were common responses to cries at all ages. In addition there were significant increases with age in prosocial, behavioral interventions. Expressions of negative emotion were inversely related to subsequent forms of prosocial behavior that required direct interaction with the infant. The emotions and behaviors of most children were not influenced by whether they heard preterm or full-term cries. They were, however, able to discriminate between such cries and some articulated "theories" about the impact of the cries on the listener.     

Associations of Warmth and Control of Filipina Domestic Helpers and Mothers to Hong Kong Kindergarten Children's Social Competence

Research Findings: Across 63 Hong Kong families, both Filipina domestic helpers and mothers separately rated their own caregiving style (warmth and control) and kindergarten children's social competence. Results indicated that Filipina helpers rated themselves as higher in warmth than mothers did. In addition, self-rated warmth of both caregivers, and Filipina domestic helpers' self-perceived control were correlated with children's social competence. With ratings of warmth and control from both Filipina helpers and mothers included in separate regression equations, mothers' warmth was a strong unique correlate of all measures of children's social competence. However, Filipinas' warmth was uniquely associated with children's responsibility only, whereas their control was uniquely associated with children's assertion and responsibility. Practice or Policy: Results extend previous research on the importance of nonparental caregivers for children's social development in a new cultural context.     

Cognitive Set and Coping Strategy Affect Mothers' Sensitivity to Infant Cries: A Signal Detection Approach

We used Signal Detection methodology to examine how cognitiveset affects mothers' response to an infant cry. We asked whether a cry from a "difficult" versus an "easy" infant would elicit a change in sensitivity or response bias in mother processing of these cries. Thirty-eight mothers of 4- to 6-month-old infants participated in a Signal Detection task in which they were asked whether they could detect differences between a standard cry and 1 to 4 cry variants. Cry variants differed from the standard cry in small, systematic changes in fundamental frequency. The task was conducted in 2 parts; each part constituted a condition wherein mother received a cognitive set manipulation that labeled the identical cry as coming from either a'difficult'or an "easy" infant. An increase in mothers' sensitivity was associated with the "difficult" infant cognitive set. We examined as well how a coping strategy(illusion of control) affected cry signal processing. Mothers who Exhibited high illusory control were least -sensitive in detecting differences between cries. Two information-prcessing, measures response time and heart rate, were also collected and showed that greater sensitivity was associated with more efficient processing of the cry signal.     

Differences on Bayley's infant behavior record for a sample of high-risk infants and their controls

3 groups of high-risk newborns and their controls were assessed at 92 weeks post-conceptional age using Bayley's Infant Behavioral Record (IBR). The 3 groups of high-risk infants were those who weighed 1,500 grams or less at birth and required no ventilator therapy, those weighing 1,500 grams or less at birth who required ventilator therapy, and newborns weighing more than 1,500 grams at birth who required ventilator therapy. Controls were healthy term infants matched for 7 socioeconomic and demographic variables. The first principal component of the IBR ratings for the 3 groups of high-risk infants and the controls were similar. All 3 groups of high-risk infants received less desirable IBR ratings on most items than their controls. In addition, there were some differences among high-risk groups; ventilated infants regardless of birth weight received the lowest ratings reflecting overall performance on the IBR, very low birthweight, ventilated newborns were more likely to receive ratings characterizing an overly active infant with a short attention span, and very low birth-weight, never-ventilated infants were most likely to be rated as happy but passive and delayed. The differences between the high-risk infants and controls in large part resulted from infants who were also delayed in terms of their mental and motor development.     

Studying Quality of Caregiving Behavior: The Roles of Infant,Mother, Father,and Culture

SYNOPSIS

This study showed that prenatal quality of caregiving behavior toward a crying simulator infant predicted the postnatal quality of caregiving behavior of both mothers and fathers.     

Associations of Warmth and Control of Filipina Domestic Helpers and Mothers to Hong Kong Kindergarten Children's Social Competence

Research Findings: Across 63 Hong Kong families, both Filipina domestic helpers and mothers separately rated their own caregiving style (warmth and control) and kindergarten children's social competence. Results indicated that Filipina helpers rated themselves as higher in warmth than mothers did. In addition, self-rated warmth of both caregivers, and Filipina domestic helpers' self-perceived control were correlated with children's social competence. With ratings of warmth and control from both Filipina helpers and mothers included in separate regression equations, mothers' warmth was a strong unique correlate of all measures of children's social competence. However, Filipinas' warmth was uniquely associated with children's responsibility only, whereas their control was uniquely associated with children's assertion and responsibility. Practice or Policy: Results extend previous research on the importance of nonparental caregivers for children's social development in a new cultural context.