Adults' Tolerance of Cries: An Experimental Investigation of Acoustic Features

Bisping, Rudolf; Steingrueber, Hans Joachim; Oltmann, Martine; Wenk, Christine B.

doi:10.2307/1130889

Cited by 19 publications

(7 citation statements)

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“…Certainly, the experimenters have found the resynthesized cries to sound natural, but it is not clear whether naive listeners could have detected aspects of the stimuli that did not quite sound natural. The study of Bisping et al ͑1990͒, where the spectral envelope, and thus the formants, was scaled along with F 0 , illustrates the point. It is well known that F 0 may vary considerably, because it is mainly the result of the interactions of subglottal pressure and laryngeal muscular tension.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 96%

Perceptual differences in infant cries revealed by modifications of acoustic features

Protopapas

Eimas

1997

The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America

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Previous studies of infant cry acoustics and their perceptual significance have remained inconclusive as to the graded nature of cry production and perception and to the exact role and importance of particular acoustic features. In this study, a set of infant cries were digitally analyzed and resynthesized to form natural-sounding cries with varying fundamental frequency (F0), degrees of jitter (period to period variations in F0), and rise time (time for F0 to reach its maximum value). In a perceptual rating task, higher-F0 cries as well as cries with larger amounts of jitter tended to be given more negative ratings than were lower-F0 cries and cries with less jitter, respectively. The perceptual ratings of the rise time manipulations were inconclusive. This study demonstrated a perceptual effect of F0 and jitter independently of other parameters, consistent with current notions of infant cry gradedness. It was also shown that digital signal processing techniques can be fruitfully applied to infant cry research.

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Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 96%

Perceptual differences in infant cries revealed by modifications of acoustic features

Protopapas

Eimas

1997

The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America

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“…A frequent form of aggression is "shaken baby syndrome" (Becker et al 1998), also called "shaking-impact syndrome" (Duhaime et al 1998). Infants at risk of this treatment include those whose cries do not yield to comforting, or sound unusually noxious (Zeskind and Shingler 1991), characteristics that may be associated with physical abnormality, illness, or pain (Bisping et al 1990;Frodi and Senchak 1990).…”

Section: Cryingmentioning

confidence: 99%

Parental selection of vocal behavior

Locke

2006

Hum Nat

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Although all natural languages are spoken, there is no accepted account of the evolution of a skill prerequisite to language-control of the movements of speech. If selection applied at sexual maturity, individuals achieving some command of articulate vocal behavior in previous stages would have enjoyed unusual advantages in adulthood. I offer a parental selection hypothesis, according to which hominin parents apportioned care, in part, on the basis of their infants' vocal behavior. Specifically, it is suggested that persistent or noxious crying reduced care to individuals who would have had difficulty learning complex behaviors, and that cooing and babbling increased social interaction and care as well as control over complex oralmotor activity of the sort required by spoken language. Several different tests of the hypothesis are suggested.

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“…This perceived difference in the sound of crying was found for naturally occurring cries emitted after, but not before, the evening feeding. Thus, there may have been something different in the cry sound after the evening feeding that led mothers to find their infant's crying to be excessive or problematic, A wide range of laboratory studies has shown how specific acoustic features of crying, such as the fundamental frequency (basic pitch) (e.g., Bisping, Steingrueber, Oltmann, & Wenk, 1990;Zeskind & Lester, 1978;Zeskind & Marshall, 1988), duration of expiratory sounds (Gustafson & Green, 1989;Zeskind, Klein, & Marshall, 1992), dominant frequency (frequency with the greatest amplitude) (Green, Jones, & Gustafson, 1987), and the amount of dysphonation (nonharmonic acoustic structure) (Gustafson & Green, 1989), are related to how aversive or salient cries are perceived to be. It is interesting that, although the clinical literature has long referred to high-pitched, pained cries in infants with colic (e.g,, Adams & Davidson, 1987;IUingworth, 1985;Lakin, 1957), very few studies have explored whether the cries of infants with colic actually vary in acoustic features.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Acoustic Characteristics of Naturally Occurring Cries of Infants with "Colic"

Zeskind

Barr

1997

Child Development

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Although infantile colic has long been defined by a perceived excessive amount of crying, acoustic attributes of the cry sound may also contribute to perceptions that this early social behavior is excessive or problematic. From an original sample of 76 infants (38 infants referred to physicians for problematic crying, or "colic," and 38 pair-matched comparison infants), 48 infants who produced naturally occurring cry bouts both before and after an evening feeding were studied: 11 infants with Wessel's colic, 15 infants with non-Wessel's colic, and 22 comparison infants. Standard and vociferous cry segments were selected from up to 2 min of tape-recorded crying for spectrum analysis. Vociferous cry segments had a longer duration, a higher fundamental frequency, and a greater percentage of dysphonation than did standard segments. No differences between infant groups were found in cries before feeding. After feeding, infants who were problematic criers, independent of Wessel's criteria, showed a greater percentage of dysphonation in the vociferous cry segment than did comparison infants. This finding resulted from a decrease in dysphonation in the cries of comparison infants after feeding and an increase in those of infants with non-Wessel's colic. The dominant frequency also increased after feeding in the vociferous cries of infants with Wessel's colic, resulting in these infants having higher-pitched cries after feeding than infants in the other 2 groups. Results indicate that infants who are perceived to have problematic crying have objectively different acoustic features in their cry sounds that are particularly aversive, and that complaints about excessive crying cannot be accounted for simply on the basis of reporting bias in overly concerned or emotionally labile parents.

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Adults' Tolerance of Cries: An Experimental Investigation of Acoustic Features

Cited by 19 publications

References 0 publications

Perceptual differences in infant cries revealed by modifications of acoustic features

Perceptual differences in infant cries revealed by modifications of acoustic features

Parental selection of vocal behavior

Acoustic Characteristics of Naturally Occurring Cries of Infants with "Colic"

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