The DOI matches its Crossref record; 53 of the 55 references it cites were found in a registry or an index.
Newborns' Cry Melody Is Shaped by Their Native Language
Open accessAbstract
Human fetuses are able to memorize auditory stimuli from the external world by the last trimester of pregnancy, with a particular sensitivity to melody contour in both music and language. Newborns prefer their mother's voice over other voices and perceive the emotional content of messages conveyed via intonation contours in maternal speech ("motherese"). Their perceptual preference for the surrounding language and their ability to distinguish between prosodically different languages and pitch changes are based on prosodic information, primarily melody. Adult-like processing of pitch intervals allows newborns to appreciate musical melodies and emotional and linguistic prosody. Although prenatal exposure to native-language prosody influences newborns' perception, the surrounding language affects sound production apparently much later. Here, we analyzed the crying patterns of 30 French and 30 German newborns with respect to their melody and intensity contours. The French group preferentially produced cries with a rising melody contour, whereas the German group preferentially produced falling contours. The data show an influence of the surrounding speech prosody on newborns' cry melody, possibly via vocal learning based on biological predispositions.
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“As an example, recent research shows that newborns’ cry melody evidences vocal learning partially based on the influence of surrounding speech prosody (Mampe et al., 2009). Such learning processes occur during the first 2–5 days of life, in other words, during the ‘pre-learning’ period proposed by Gray.”
From Back to basics: A re-evaluation of the relevance of imprinting in the genesis of Bowlby’s attachment theory (2022) · cites this paper as Mampe et al., 2009
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Metadata
- Authors
- Mampe, B., Friederici, A. D., Christophe, A., & Wermke, K.
- Affiliations
- Max Planck Society (DE)
- Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (FR)
- University of Würzburg (DE)
- Corresponding author
- Wermke, Kathleen
- Venue
- Current Biology
- Publisher
- Elsevier BV
- Published
- 2009-12
- Volume
- 19
- Issue
- 23
- Pages
- 1994-1997
- ISSN
- 0960-9822 (ISSN-L)
- OpenAlex
- W2057083828
- Cited by
- 564
- References
- 55
- Citations by year
- 2026: 36 · 2025: 33 · 2024: 19 · 2023: 18 · 2022: 41 · 2021: 43 · 2020: 77 · 2019: 34 · 2018: 32 · 2017: 30 · 2016: 26 · 2015: 35 · 2014: 37 · 2013: 37 · 2012: 31
- FWCI
- 27.13
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- bronze
- doi.org
- Licence
- www.elsevier.com/tdm/userlicense/1.0/ (tdm)
- www.elsevier.com/legal/tdmrep-license (tdm)
- www.elsevier.com/open-access/userlicense/1.0/ (vor, 1324 d)
- doi.org/10.15223/policy-017 (stm-asf)
- doi.org/10.15223/policy-037 (stm-asf)
- doi.org/10.15223/policy-012 (stm-asf)
- doi.org/10.15223/policy-029 (stm-asf)
- doi.org/10.15223/policy-004 (stm-asf)
- Locations
- Current Biology (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Max Planck Institute for Plasma Physics (submittedVersion)
- Max Planck Digital Library (submittedVersion)
- MPG.PuRe (Max Planck Society) (submittedVersion)
- Funders
- European Commission
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Experimental and Cognitive Psychology › Phonetics and Phonology Research
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Neuroscience and Music Perception
- Health Sciences › Medicine › Pediatrics, Perinatology and Child Health › Infant Health and Development
- Keywords
- newborn crying, pitch contour, language influence, prosody, child-directed speech, prenatal language exposure, France-Germany comparison, vocal learning, emotional prosody
- MeSH terms
- Auditory Perception, Crying, Female, Humans, Infant, Newborn, Language, Male
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