The role of the mother's voice in developing mother's face preference: Evidence for intermodal perception at birth

Abstract

Four experiments are described which investigated the role of the mother's voice in facilitating recognition of the mother's face at birth. Experiment 1 replicated our previous findings (Br. J. Dev. Psychol. 1989; 7: 3-15; The origins of human face perception by very young infants. Ph.D. Thesis, University of Glasgow, Scotland, UK, 1990) indicating a preference for the mother's face when a control for the mother's voice and odours was used only during the testing. A second experiment adopted the same procedures, but controlled for the mother's voice from birth through testing. The neonates were at no time exposed to their mother's voice. Under these conditions, no preference was found. Further, neonates showed only few head turns towards both the mother and the stranger during the testing. Experiment 3 looked at the number of head turns under conditions where the newborn infants were exposed to both the mother's voice and face from birth to 5 to 15 min prior to testing. Again, a strong preference for the mother's face was demonstrated. Such preference, however, vanished in Experiment 4, when neonates had no previous exposure to the mother's voice-face combination. The conclusion drawn is that a prior experience with both the mother's voice and face is necessary for the development of face recognition, and that intermodal perception is evident at birth. The neonates' ability to recognize the face of the mother is most likely to be rooted in prenatal learning of the mother's voice.

Infant face interest is associated with voice information and maternal psychological health

“…Given that infants in our study were sitting on their mother's lap during the test session, infants might not have been driven to facilitate such an interaction with their mother by looking at the photograph of her face. This finding, therefore, supports the literature which suggests that voices play a role in infant face interest (e.g., Brookes et al, 2001;Coulon et al, 2011;Sai, 2005).…”

“…Although Jones et al (2013) have started to investigate how a variety of maternal factors in a community sample may interact with infant face interest, their research is not representative of infants' typical encounters with faces as it does not reflect the visual and auditory multidimensionality involved in face presentation in the normal environment (e.g., Brookes, Slater, Quinn, Lewkowicz, Hayes & Brown, 2001;Coulon, Guella & Streri, 2011;Sai, 2005). Consistent with the face interest literature, newborn infants exhibit a preference for listening to their mother's voice, rather than a female stranger's voice (DeCasper & Fifer, 1980), and for listening to speech in their mother's language (Moon, Cooper & Fifer, 1993).…”

“…Moreover, early experience with the mother's voice from birth is necessary for facilitating neonatal mother face preference (Sai, 2005). Infants also orient to their mother's face when listening to a recording of her voice (Spelke & Owsley, 1979).…”

The role of demonstrator familiarity and language cues on infant imitation from television

“…From birth, infants show a preference for looking at their mother's face compared to a stranger (e.g., Pascalis, de Schonen, Morton, Deruelle, & Fabre-Grenet, 1995;Sai, 2005), and spend the majority of their time in her presence. This experience could result in infants' showing different levels of learning from their mother compared to a stranger.…”

The early development of face processing — What makes faces special?

“…Less than one hour after birth, infants prefer to follow a slowly-moving face-like configuration with their eyes compared to other similarly complex visual stimuli that do not resemble a face [1] . A few hours after birth, infants are able to recognize their mother's face [2,3] .…”